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DONALD CLIVE STUART | 


THE DEVELOPMENT 
OF DRAMATIC ART 


THE DEVELOPMENT 
OF DRAMATIC ART 


BY 


Donald Clive Stuart, Ph.D. 


PROFESSOR OF DRAMATIC ART, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 


New York :: 322 London 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
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PREFACE 


The aim of this book is to trace the development of dramatic art 
from its origin to the present day. Therefore it includes within its 
scope only those forms of drama which contributed directly or 
indirectly to the development of the ‘art as it appears on the 
modern stage. No play is discussed merely because it is a fine 
example of dramatic art. Certain plays that are mediocre have 
been analyzed because they have contributed in some degree to the 
development of the art. The omission of a play is not to be con- 
strued as a tacit criticism of its artistic value. Oriental drama, 
English and American drama of the nineteenth century and even 
plays of such dramatists as Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Con- 
greve, Sheridan, Alfieri, Calderon and others are not treated because 
modern dramatic art would not be essentially different had they 
never been written. 

The ultimate origin of modern drama is found in certain primi- 
tive Greek rituals. These ritualistic practices developed into Greek 
tragedy and Aristophanic comedy. New Comedy was an out- 
growth of these two forms and it was preserved in the plays of 
Plautus and Terence. The so-called Senecan tragedies were the 
only serious plays by a Roman playwright to survive the downfall 
of the Roman Empire. 

About the tenth century a new form of drama developed from 
the Christian rituals. The classical drama remained in manuscript 
form, while medieval drama developed as the living form of the art. 
During the Renaissance the classical form was rediscovered and 
revived in Italy. Its influence then spread to France, Spain and 
England where it combined with the medieval form and produced 
drama more or less classical in proportion as its influence was 
operative. 

With the closing of the theatres in England in 1642 and with 
the decay of the vitality of Spain, the French theatre assumed the 


leadership of dramatic art and held it for many generations. By 
vii 


Viii PREFACE 


the middle of the eighteenth century, sentimental comedy and do- 
mestic tragedy began to demand a place on the European stage 
which had been dominated by neo-classical ideals. Steele, Cibber, 
Lillo and Moore in England, Diderot and Sedaine in France, 
Lessing and Schiller in Germany were exponents of these new 
forms. But the Shakespearean revival brought forth romantic 
tragedy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in 
Germany and France and delayed the natural development of 
bourgeois drama into the problem play, which finally took place 
after the middle of the nineteenth century. 

French dramatic craftsmanship always tended to stress con- 
struction according to rules. The well-made play was the result 
of the classical ideals of dramatic art combined with the innate 
clarity, orderliness and logic of the French. Towards the end of the 
nineteenth century the Germans, the Russians and the French 
naturalists attacked the well-made problem play. At the same 
time symbolism began to permeate the plays of Ibsen and of Maeter- 
linck. Strindberg, inspired by Maeterlinck’s symbolism, introduced 
expressionism into drama. 

The expressionistic dramatists have cast aside all rules, all con- 
ventions. The modern theatre is open to every known form of 
dramatic art. The dramatist who has something to say has only 
to choose the form in which he wishes to say it. All the arts and 
much of the mechanics of the modern world are at his command. 
Whatever synthesis he employs, he will be heard, provided he knows 
how to play upon the delicate mechanism of the human mind. 

Such is the development in brief outline which this book aims to 
trace in detail. Emphasis has been laid upon that form of drama 
which was preparing for the advance, or was actually progressing, 
or was the dominant influence in the theatre in any given period. 
Hence an apparent lack of proportion in the treatment of the 
respective dramatic epochs was unavoidable. The book is not a 
history of dramatic art; but it is hoped that the reader who follows 
the discussion to the end may obtain a clearer understanding of 
how and why dramatic art arose at the altar of Dionysus and de- 
veloped into the many forms which thousands of people are wit- 
nessing at this moment. 

Deere 


CONTENTS 


Pp REFACE e ° . e e o e e . e . 2 e 5 e ° 
CHAPTER 


I. 


ii, 


iit, 


VII. 


VIII. 


IX. 


xX. 


48 


rae 


XIII. 


XIV. 


Xv. 


XVI. 


XVII. 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK TRAGEDY. ASCHYLUS . ° . 

SOPHOCLES. . ° . . . . ° 

EURIPIDES 

THE ORIGIN OF GREEK COMEDY. ARISTOPHANES. MENAN- 
DER . . . < ° : . - ‘ < 

LATIN COMEDY . . . 

THE ORIGIN OF MEDIEVAL DRAMA. FRENCH MEDIEVAL 
DRAMA : . ° . . . . . ° 

ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA. KYD. MARLOWE. SHAKE- 
SPEARE “ . . . . ° : ° 

SENECA . . . : . . . ° . ° . . . 5 

ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE . . 

ITALIAN COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE. THE PASTORAL 

FRENCH COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE AND THE SEVEN- 
TEENTH CENTURY . ° 

FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE. HARDY 

FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURIES . : . . . : : . ar lie Me i - 

TEARFUL COMEDY. DOMESTIC DRAMA . . . . . . 

GERMAN DRAMA OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . ‘ . 

FRENCH MELODRAMA. FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA ‘. . 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA. THE PROBLEM PLAY 
ix 


PAGE 


IOI 


137 


151 


184 
241 
250 


283 


298 
343 


373 
424 
454 
485 
514 


CHAPTER I. 
THE ORIGIN OF GREEK TRAGEDY. ASSCHYLUS 


RAMA exists when a human being pretends, for artistic rea- 

sons, that he is something or someone else. Drama is more 

. than imitation. A portrait is an imitation, an artistic likeness. 

Drama is an artistic illusion, although it is not a perfect illusion 
of reality by which we are entirely deceived. 

Drama could spring from the play of a child who imagines, for 
the time being, that he is someone else; or it could arise from 
theriomorphic dances in which a childlike man pretends that he is 
an animal. Modern dramatic art developed from pagan and 
Christian rituals in which the celebrants began to impersonate 
the divine beings or forces of nature they were worshipping. 

Rituals are devised to celebrate an important event of the past, 
such as the birth or death of a god or hero, or of the present, 
such as the return of spring or the annual resurrection of a god. 
In the first case, the ritual is retrospective. It is an evocation of 
the past. In the second case, the ritual is the celebration of some 
event that is supposedly taking place. Celebrants of a ritual 
usually wear some insignia such as a mask, or some special arti- 
cle of clothing. Drama is more than persons in costume reciting 
a ritual; but the insignia sets them apart from others. Drama 
hovers on the threshold of existence when, under the stress of 
religious emotion, the celebrant unconsciously loses his own iden- 
tity and begins to feel that he is the god or hero or someone 
closely connected with the god or hero in whose honor the ritual 
is being performed. An audience is in process of creation when 
any onlooker, not taking an active part in the ritual, feels that 
the celebrant is no longer a priest but is a character in the event 
which is being celebrated. No matter how fleeting such impres- 
sions may be, drama is potentially existent so long as they last. 

I 


2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Drama exists when these impressions are the result, not merely - 
of religious inspiration, but also of artistic inspiration. A dra- 
matic ritual is not drama; but it sometimes gives birth to ritual- 
istic drama. 

In connection with the worship of Dionysus, there was the 
celebration of his birth in the form of a dithyramb. Plato 
believed that the original meaning of the term was a song in 
celebration of the birth of Dionysus. At first the dithyramb was 
improvisational. It was probably a performance in which a 
chorus, disguised as caprine satyrs, rendered a ritualistic chant 
in connection with improvisations sung or spoken by a leader. It« 
was a wild, orgiastic rite. The tone of the dithyramb was un- 
dignified, the language was ludicrous. The revelry was obscene. 

Whether or not there was impersonation on the part of the 
celebrants in these extemporaneous performances, no one knows. 
The fact that they were extemporaneous would not militate 
against impersonation or imitation. The actors of the Italian 
commedia dell’ arte extemporized their dialogue. The mental 
condition of the worshippers of Dionysus would be favorable to 
impersonation. If there was impersonation, the result was a 
dramatic ritual and not drama, for drama is the result of an 
artistic impulse. 

Aristotle states that tragedy was “improvisational by origin” 
and that it was derived “from the leaders of the dithyramb.” A 
fragment of Archilochus says that he “knows how, when his 
heart is crazed with wine, to lead lord Dionysus’ dithyramb.” 
Leading a dithyramb does not mean writing it; but it might 
mean enacting it. Aristotle does not imply that the leaders of 
the dithyramb were the first authors of a form of drama which 
developed into tragedy, but were the first actors of a ritualistic 
mimesis which became tragedy. | 

When did the dithyrambic ritual in honor of Dionysus become 
a form of drama as a result of an impulse not wholly religious 
but, in part, artistic? Solon of Athens is said to have made the 
statement in his Elegies that “Arion introduced the first drama of 
tragedy.” Herodotus says: “Arion was second to none of the 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK TRAGEDY 3 


harpists of that time and was the first of the men known to us 
to compose a dithyramb and to give it a name and to represent 
it at Corinth.” Whether Arion was really the first or not, at 
least we know that, by the middle of the seventh century, B.u., 
the dithyramb was not merely an improvised religious ritual but 
was a form of art with titles, composed as the result of an 
impulse which was artistic as well as religious. 

We cannot be certain that impersonation was an element in 
the dithyramb at this period; but it is probable that such was 
the case. The phrase “drama of tragedy” may mean a mimetic 
choral ritual. As Aristotle said: “Imitation is one instinct of 
our nature.” Impersonation would naturally arise under the 
stimulus of orgiastic rites when the dithyramb was purely an 
act of emotional celebration in honor of the god of wine. We 
know that impersonation arose in connection with the Christian 
rituals commemorating the death and resurrection of Christ. 
Since it could arise in such circumstances of a solemn, retrospec- 
tive ritual, it could develop all the more easily in the Greek or- 
giastic revelry. 

It has been suggested by a modern critic that even at an ad- 
vanced stage the dithyramb “was probably much like a sacred 
oratorio of modern times in which the performers may sing words 
which are appropriate to characters and yet make no attempt by 
costume, gesture or action to represent those characters.” But 
the chorus in the dithyramb were in costume; and because of 
this costume, they made a very different impression from that 
of the oratorio singers in ordinary dress. Also, the celebrants 
of a ritual usually make gestures which are at least symbolic, 
if not imitative. It is probable that these Greek worshippers 
were no exception to the rule. An uncostumed, sacred oratorio 
is more undramatic than a ritual, and we are concerned with an 
orgiastic rite in which costume was worn by the priests. 

Tragedy was originally joyous in its tone. Aristotle describes 
its development as follows: “Tragedy acquired also its magni- 
tude. Discarding short stories and a ludicrous diction, through 
its passing out of its satyric stage, it assumed, though only at 


4 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


a late point in its progress, a tone of dignity.” When Aristotle 
defines the form of tragedy which he treats in the Poetics, his 
first statement is that “tragedy, then, is the imitation of an 
action that is serious.” Of all the differences between early 
tragedy and the tragedy of his age, the difference in tone is the 
most striking, the most important. Aristotle gives the time of 
this development as “late.” Professor Flickinger would place 
it, by implication, as post-Thespian, since he believes that 
Thespian tragedy was ludicrous. Professor Bywater conjectures 
that it refers to the period of Phrynichus. What Aristotle meant 
by “late” we shall probably never know. | 

The reason of this momentous change in tone seems rarely to 
have interested classical scholars of the past or present. To 
consider this evolution as a natural development is to avoid the 
question. Usually the serious tone of tragedy is ascribed to the 
influence of epic poetry on dramatic art. Classical scholars have 
been prone to exaggerate the influence of epic poetry and to 
make assumptions that have no basis of historical facts, so far 
as we know them, nor any validity whatsoever so far as the art 
of drama is concerned. ‘ 

Professor Flickinger represents correctly the consensus of 
opinion of classical scholars when he says: “The indebtedness of 
tragedy to epic poetry for subject matter, dignity of treatment 
and of diction, and development of plot, including such technical 
devices as recognition and reversal of situation, is too well estab- 
lished to require argument.” It is true that these views are 
held tenaciously ; but the indebtedness of tragedy to the epic, so 
patent as to require no argument, is that of subject matter and 
diction. Even this indebtedness seems to have been incurred 
in the Aschylean period or but slightly prior to it. 

Recognition and reversal of situation are not really technical 
devices inherent in dramatic art. Aristotle’s theories and his 
discussions concerning them have greatly exaggerated their im- 
portance. They are not a necessary part of drama or of the epic. 
Their presence in a drama or their absence does not automatically 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK TRAGEDY 5 


increase or decrease the dramatic value of the piece. They are, 
at times, excellent means of arousing certain emotions in both 
drama and epic. They are a means to an end, but not an end 
in themselves, as Aristotle believed. 

Unless the evidence furnished by extant plays is entirely mis- 
leading, development of plot occurred in the Aéschylean period. 
His Persians, Suppliants and Prometheus Bound have little plot. 
The Pheenician Women by Phrynichus seems to have had almost 
none at all. The Aschylean plays require two actors and a 
chorus. Phrynichus had to compose his early dramas for one 
actor, or one individual character and a chorus. Naturally they 
could not have much plot. There is no reason to believe that 
the development of plot on the part of A%schylus and Sophocles 
was the result of their study of the epic. It was rather due to 
an increasing skill on their part as dramatists who realized that 
the Greek audience enjoyed the complications which they intro- 
duced gradually. It was also due to the fact that A®schylus 
could employ two speaking actors and finally three speaking 
actors to play scenes in these more developed plots. Sophocles’ 
Electra is much more developed in plot than the Libation- 
Bearers of Atschylus. Surely this difference between the two 
plays on the same theme is not due to the influence of epic 
poetry on Sophocles as a dramatist. 

In the development of any art, the reasons for the changes are 
to be sought in the art itself rather than in any other form of 
art. To ascribe the narrative speeches in tragedy to the influ- 
ence of the structure of the epic, to ascribe the dignity of tragedy 
to the influence of the tone of the epic, is to assume a close 
relationship which does not exist between these two arts. Epic 
poets treated certain stories. Dramatists also treated them. 
Aéschylus dramatized the Homeric epics; but A%schylus did not 
learn his art of playmaking from Homer. 

We are naturally led to seek some form of dramatic ritual or 
even ritualistic drama which would influence primitive joyous 
tragedy and which would cause it to develop into the serious 
tragedy written by AXschylus. The serious drama of the Middle 


6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Ages developed from a solemn, retrospective ritual dealing with 
the death and resurrection of Christ. The Greeks performed 
similar rituals in honor of their dead heroes. Herodotus is our 
authority for the existence among the Sicyonians of such a 
ritual in honor of their dead king, Adrastus. He says: “Besides 
other ceremonies, it has been their wont to honor Adrastus with 
tragic choruses, which they assigned to him rather than Dionysus, 
on account of his calamities” (v. 67). The question arises 
whether these choruses would have performed joyous rituals had 
they been assigned to Dionysus first. Probably such would have 
been the case. But the dramatic ritual performed by a chorus 
in honor of Adrastus ‘‘on account of his calamities” was serious 
and dignified, not orgiastic and ludicrous. Herodotus makes the 
additional statement that “Clisthenes now gave the choruses to 
Dionysus, transferring to Melanippus the rest of the sacred rites.” 
This transfer of choruses is evidence of the close association of 
different forms of choral worship. 

The evolution of tragedy may now be traced. From the 
leaders of the dithyramb—whom I would identify with the 
leaders of the choruses—arose impersonation and mimesis as 
they performed an orgiastic, joyous rite in honor of the birth of 
Dionysus. This impersonation and mimesis caused the dramatic 
ritual to evolve into ritualistic drama performed by a chorus 
dressed as caprine satyrs. From the goat-like appearance of the 
chorus was derived the word tragedy or goat-song. At Sicyon, 
the choruses, which Herodotus implies might have been assigned 
to Dionysus, were assigned to Adrastus. They performed solemn 
rites and introduced into this ritual the elements of impersona- 
tion and mimesis, which had sprung from the leaders of the 
dithyramb and which caused these solemn rites to evolve into a 
ritualistic drama in honor of the dead hero. It was then that 
serious tragedy became an offshoot of joyous tragedy. The 
original joyous. form of dramatic art did not disappear, but 
developed into the satyr play. When the chorus at Sicyon was 
assigned to Dionysus, the construction and serious tone of the 


ritualistic drama in honor of Adrastus was, to some extent, 


r 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK TRAGEDY 7 


superimposed upon the dithyramb in honor of Dionysus. The 
joyous tragedy continued to exist side by side with serious 
tragedy. A new form of drama does not instantly supplant an 
older form; but the elements which are acceptable innovations 
develop gradually. 

According to a tradition handed down by Suidas, Epigenes of 
Sicyon was the first tragic poet. It was also a tradition that the 
Greek proverb, “nothing to do with Dionysus,” arose ‘when 
Epigenes had composed a tragedy in honor of Dionysus.” Pro- 
fessor Flickinger gives a very simple and highly credible expla- 
nation of the origin of the proverb. “We have no information,” 
he says, “as to the costume which the choreutze wore honoring 
the sorrows of Adrastus. There was, of course, no reason for 
their appearing as satyrs. But were satyric choreute introduced 
at the same time that the dances were given over to Dionysus? 
If we answer this question in the negative, the situation becomes 
clear. The audience, or part of it, was sufficiently acquainted 
with the performances instituted by Arion at Corinth to expect 
a chorus of satyrs in the Sicyonian dances after they were trans- 
ferred to Dionysus. And when Epigenes brought on his choreutze 
in the same (non-satyric) costume they naturally manifested 
their surprise with the ejaculation: ovSéyv mod¢ Atdyvooy (noth- 
ing to do with Dionysus). By this they meant: ‘Why, these 
choreute are just what we have had all the time; there is 
nothing of the satyr about them. They have nothing to do 
with Dionysus.’ ” 

At least we have the tradition that some non-Dionysiac element 
had been introduced by Epigenes at Sicyon into the ritualistic 
drama. The influence of the ritual in honor of the dead hero 
accounts for the serious tone of tragedy, and the same ritual 
explains the construction of tragedy as we know it. Therefore, 
it seems that this influence was operative; and in view of the 
statements of Herodotus in regard to what happened at Sicyon, 
the reciprocal influence of these two rituals was operating at 
that place and in the sixth century. The dramatic element of 
mimesis was furnished by the Dionysiac dithyramb, The serious 


8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


element and the general construction of tragedy sprang from 
the ceremonies in honor of Adrastus. 

Surely Epigenes had at least seen the rites in honor of the 
dead hero. Furthermore, it is quite possible that Epigenes had 
composed the choral songs in honor of Adrastus before he began 
to compose tragedies in honor of Dionysus when Clisthenes 
transferred the chorus to that god. In either case, what could 
be more natural for him than to introduce not only the non- 
satyric choreutz, but also the tone and construction of the ritual 
of the dead hero into the ritualistic drama in honor of Dionysus? 

Also this theory furnishes us with the probable reason for the 
non-satyric choreute in the “tragedy of Dionysus” composed by 
Epigenes: a chorus of caprine satyrs would be out of place in 
tragedy of serious tone. The chorus in the ritual performed in 
honor of the dead hero would naturally be composed of citizens 
in sympathy with the hero. Such a chorus is exactly the chorus 
of Aischylean tragedv. 

We have, then, a more serious form of tragedy, with a non- 
satyric chorus. The subject of the tragedy may well have been 
Dionysiac. The joyous tragedy—resembling the satyr-play or 
satyr-like poetry—still existed ; but, with the introduction of this 
solemn dignified tone and the non-satyric chorus, tragedy must 
have begun the development which Aristotle calls “its passing out 
of the satyric stage.” The joyous tragedy continued both at 
Sicyon and elsewhere to develop into the satyr play. 

In 534 B.c. Pisistratus established at Athens the City Dionysia, 
a festival in honor of Dionysus Eleuthereus. Thespis, a native 
of the Attic village, Icaria, was the first to win the prize in this 
tragic contest. Perhaps because he was the first successful con- 
testant, he was called by the ancients “the father of Attic 
tragedy.” Certain innovations in the art of tragedy are ascribed 
to him. Diogenes Laertius says that “in ancient times the chorus 
alone carried on the action, but Thespis invented the single actor.” 
But this statement cannot be accepted as literally true. The 
single actor or individual réle evolved from the leader of the 
dithyramb. Indeed, the functions of the author, leader, and actor 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK TRAGEDY 9 


were originally performed by the same individual. Even down 
to the time of Sophocles, authors acted in their own tragedies. 
It may be that Thespis developed the individual réle in length 
and importance, and that in this manner the function of the cory- 
pheus became more distinctly that of an actor. 

According to Themistius, Thespis was the first to add a pro- 
logue and spoken statement to the song of the chorus. But 
improvised spoken statements had been part of the dithyramb. 
The prologue—that part of the tragedy before the first choral 
entrance—may have been the invention of Thespis. As there 
was only one speaking actor in any given scene, it must have been 
a monologue. At least, it seems safe to assume from the state- 
ments of Diogenes Laertius and Themistius that Thespis de- 
veloped to some extent that part of the tragedy played by indi- 
vidual characters. 

Describing the development of primitive tragedy, Aristotle 
says: “Another change was the plurality of episodes” or as they 
would be called today, scenes. This development would hardly 
be possible until more than one individual character was intro- 
duced into the play. When this innovation was made a “plurality 
of episodes” would be inevitable because two individual char- 
acters did not appear together in any one scene until the A‘schy- 
lean period. 

Aristotle also states that tragedy did not originally confine its 
action to a single “revolution of the sun.” Only when tragedy 
had acquired a plurality of episodes, would the duration of the 
action naturally be prolonged. So long as there was but one 
episode and one individual character, the duration of the action 
would tend to correspond to the duration of the performance. 

Such innovations are important and would be additional reasons 
for calling Thespis the father of Attic tragedy. We know that 
they were introduced by someone before the time of A®schylus. 
They could hardly have been made by Arion or Epigenes. What 
evidence we have—tenuous and conjectural as it is—points to 
Thespis as the innovator. The only other possibility would be 


10 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Phrynichus. But if he was the first to make these changes, upon 
what does the traditional fame of Thespis rest? 

Suidas gives Phorbas or the Prizes of Pelias, Priests, Youths 
and Pentheus as the titles of four Thespian plays. Were they 
crude, coarse and ludicrous, as has been conjectured by modern 
scholars? Was tragedy so close in time to Aéschylean drama still 
totally without its serious tone? It seems improbable. Thespian 
plays may well have had a happy dénouement. The tragedy 
with an unhappy ending was considered the best form by Aris- 
totle, but such an ending was not the sine qua non of Greek 
tragedy either in theory or in practice. 

Was Phrynichus the first to compose serious tragedy? ‘That 
possibility also seems improbable. But even if he was, why did 
he alter the tone of this form of drama? It would be difficult 
to believe that this innovation was the result of the influence of 
the narrative epic, either in manuscript form or chanted by a 
bard, on choral drama. It is much more probable that the change 
in tone was due to the influence of the commemorative choral in 
honor of the dead hero, which was similar to primitive tragedy 
in that it, too, was performed by a chorus and was originally an 
act of worship. Somewhere and sometime, if not at Sicyon in 
the sixth century, the development of choral tragedy must have 
undergone the influence of this form of choral performance. The 
second oldest extant tragedy, the Persians, is a solemn lamenta- 
tion at the tomb of a dead hero. It is almost wholly retrospective, 
solemn, heroic, full of elegiac lamentation and often close to an 
act of worship. Did Aischylean tragedy assume these character- 
istics because of the influence of narrative epic, or because of the 
influence of a retrospective, solemn, religious worship. of a hero 
performed by a chorus and its leader, lamenting his calamities 
and voicing their own resultant sorrow and woe as the chorus 
does in the Persians ? 

Those who believe that Greek tragedy was modified to that 
extent by a form of art so dissimilar as the epic, might just as 
well hold the theory that the medieval Passion Play owes its 
dignity and tragic tone to the influence of the medieval epic. 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK TRAGEDY II 


Luckily, in this case, we know from irrefutable documents that 
the serious drama of the Passion and Resurrection sprang from 
the ritual performed at Easter in honor of the dead God and 
that the epic had no influence whatever. We know that the 
ritual in honor of the birth of Christ gave rise to joyous drama 
in which such comic episodes as the Shepherds’ Play were intro- 
duced. That is one more reason for believing that the dithyramb 
celebrating the birth of Dionysus produced joyous tragedy. If 
the parallel is exact in the latter case, why may it not be so in 
the former ? 

There were two kinds of lamentation for the dead. In one 
the leader sang the lament and the chorus sang the refrain. The 
composition of the oldest extant tragedies is similar to this form. 
The other form consisted of antiphonal choral song, of which 
examples are found in the Seven Against Thebes, the Libation- 
Bearers and the Persians. 

Commemorative rites were performed at the tomb of the dead 
hero. Naturally his heroic deeds would be recalled to mind in 
the song. The manner of his death would be recounted. Perhaps 
we may also assume that, towards the close of the ritual, there 
was the foreshadowing of future peace or future ill, which occurs 
in so many Greek tragedies just before the end, and which is a 
feature peculiar to Greek tragedy. It would be natural for the 
chorus, having sung of the deeds and of the death or triumph of 
the hero, to think of the future and what it holds for those who 
are so closely bound to him. 

Such a ritual could have been performed by a chorus without a 
leader. No individual characters are needed. According to Pro- 
fessor Bywater, when Aristotle said that tragedy began with 
improvisations, he meant that the author (leader) of the dithy- 
ramb came forward with an improvisation or spoken statement, 
which he intercalated between the separate choral songs—that 
being the origin of the important constituents of a Greek drama: 
a spoken part and sung part, an actor and a chorus. Aristotle 
was not speaking of a chorus worshipping a dead hero; but since 
improvisation took place in the choral rites to which Aristotle 


12 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


refers, it seems quite probable that the same development would 
occur in the choral worship of the dead, especially since we know 
that in one form, though perhaps a late form, the lament was 
actually carried on between the chorus and a leader. It is prob- 
able that the genre of the choral ode developed as a whole; and 
if the leaders of the choral odes connected with the worship of 
Dionysus began to improvise between the songs of the chorus, a 
parallel development was likely to take place in the choral odes 
connected with the worship of the dead hero. It is not without 
significance that the origin of the Greek prose encomium of the 
dead and the Roman laudatio, delivered by one person, is to be 
sought in the threnos sung by a chorus. 

A chorus with a leader, therefore, sang of a dead hero at his 
tomb. The fact that the hero of the ritual was dead explains 
much of the construction of serious tragedy. The great deeds 
and all that was important in the life of the hero would neces- 
sarily be recounted in narrative form, because the beginning or 
point of attack of a ritual performed for a dead hero is naturally 
placed after the death of the hero. The retrospective, narrative 
element, which remains in great degree even in the most highly 
developed Greek tragedy, is very effective when skillfully handled ; 
but it is contrary to the normal procedure of dramatic art which 
is to represent events in the present and not to narrate events 
of the past. Aristophanic comedy, in which there is no retrospec- 
tion or narration, except as a burlesque of tragedy, is a more 
normal form of drama in this respect. In the whole history of 
drama down to the present, retrospection and narration appear 
only as the result of the direct or indirect influence of Greek 
tragedy. This procedure, which we take for granted because it is 
effective and has become common, calls for explanation and finds 
it in the ritual in honor of the dead. 

The original function of the leader of the chorus was that of 
narrator. He was the herald or messenger who recounted the 
calamities and the death of the hero. Such scenes of narration 
and lamentation were the nucleus about which other scenes were 
to be grouped in later tragedies. The chorus lamented and sympa- 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK TRAGEDY 13 


thized with the hero. Thus the chorus became the principal 
character, not in the myth or historical event, but in the ritualistic 
drama. We see a survival of this not only in the preponderance 
of the choral element in tragedy, but also in the fact that the 
chorus is always most interested in the hero when he finally 
appears upon the Greek stage. Its fate is linked with his. We 
follow the action in the Seven Against Thebes and in the Persians 
by the reaction of the emotions of the chorus to the different 
events. 

Other characters in addition to the messenger developed by 
what may be called the individualization of choral functions, 7.e., 
the introduction of individual characters to perform functions 
that originally belonged to the chorus. Thus in the Persians 
the character of Atossa, the wife and mother, is the individualiza- 
tion of a function of the chorus with the maternal interest 
added. Her réle could revert to the chorus and the play would 
still exist. A development has taken place in which, out of the 
chorus interested in the fate of the hero, has evolved an indi- 
vidual much more vitally interested in his fate. A still further 
individualization of a collective rdle is to be found in such char- 
acters as Chrysothemis and Ismene, the respective foils of their 
sisters Electra and Antigone. These characters fulfill the some- 
what pale role of prudent counsellor, which is distinctly a rdéle 
of the chorus transferred to an individual. 

To be dogmatic in regard to the exact chronological order of 
the successive steps in the evolution of this ritualistic drama 
would be dangerous; but it is evident that the point of attack 
(the point in the story where the play begins) had to be pushed 
back to include the hero within the play itself. It would be 
natural for a band of worshippers, stimulated by religious 
ecstasy and deep emotions, to feel the presence of the departed 
spirit. In early tragedy, after the process of individualization 
had progressed far enough to create the type of character repre- 
sented by Atossa, the next step would naturally be the embodi- 
ment of the spirit of the hero. Examples of such scenes are 
found in the Persians when the spirit of the dead Darius appears, 


14 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


and in the Eumenides when the shade of Clytemnestra calls for 
vengeance. We know that medieval drama underwent a parallel 
development. In one of the earliest liturgical plays an angel, 
acting as messenger, announces the resurrection of Christ. In 
another play, the spirit of Christ appears and announces the 
resurrection. 

The fact that the same actor-leader of the Greek chorus could 
essay such a réle should hardly be offered as evidence that the 
leader of the chorus first impersonated the hero. We must 
distinguish carefully between the actor and the role itself. The 
leader had assumed the réle of the messenger or narrator before 
the hero could have possibly appeared in the play. . In the 
ritual and in the primitive drama influenced by the ritual, before 
the role of the hero was introduced, the chorus must have been 
practically the hero in the tragedy itself.. The choral rdle was 
the sympathetic rdle to the spectators. In the Suppliants, for 
example, the chorus is, let us say, the heroine. Thus the chorus, 
which was at first not the chief character of the story but only 
the principal character in the enacting of the ritual, became the 
heroine of the tragedy. That is a natural development which 
would almost inevitably take place if the choral worship of a 
dead hero began to influence dramatic art. 

However, this was not the sole way in which a hero or heroine 
was introduced on the Greek stage. Once the spirit of the indi- 
vidual hero had appeared, the next step was to place the point 
of attack back far enough to include the hero in the drama 
just before the hour of his death or the climactic event of his life. 
This is the usual point of attack even in highly developed Greek 
tragedy. It is perhaps not without significance that Polynices, 
one of the heroes in the Seven Against Thebes, does not appear 
on the stage alive, but that his body is brought on and the 
conventional lament or threnos is sung over it and over the 
body of Eteocles. In Agamemnon, the hero, the character with 
whom the chorus and the spectators sympathize, is on the stage 
but once during the whole play. It seems that the individual 
hero had great difficulty in playing an important part on the 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK TRAGEDY 15 


stage, and had to force his way before the spectators, because in 
the ritual he played no part at all before the eyes of the wor- 
shippers. 

Since the hero in Greek tragedy had difficulty in getting 6n 
the stage and in staying on for any length of time, his adversary 
or antagonist had at least as much difficulty in this respect. So 
long as there was but one individual actor in any one scene, 
there could be no agon or contest between two individual char- 
acters on the stage. Even in the early plays of A‘schylus, when 
two actors were employed, there is no agon on the stage between 
two individuals. In the Persians, the agon has taken place be- 
fore the play begins. In the Seven Against Thebes, the agon is 
behind the scenes. In the Suppliants, the agon is between the 
chorus and an individual, a herald who represents in a rather 
pale manner the real antagonists, the sons of A.gyptus. Indeed, 
it is not until three actors are employed that we find a real 
antagonist and a clash between two individuals on the stage. 
Eteocles, in the Seven Against Thebes, is hardly to be considered 
an antagonist, for the chorus, through whose eyes we watch the 
action unfold, laments for him as well as for his brother. How- 
ever, the scene in which his mood clashes with the emotions of 
the chorus is, perhaps, a primitive form of agon—a form which 
may have existed before the appearance of an antagonist who 
remains actively hostile to the hero throughout the play. The 
Suppliants illustrates the next step, in which the active antagonist 
is vicariously represented on the stage. Finally, in Agamemnon 
the two contestants, Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, face each 
other on the stage in an obligatory scene. 

Again, the reason for the non-appearance of the antagonist on 
the stage can be found in the influence of the worship of the 
dead hero on early Greek tragedy. If the hero had to be brought 
to life and then put upon the stage, naturally the antagonist 
and the clash of contending forces in the agon would be intro- 
duced slowly, almost haltingly, as the framework of Greek 
tragedy became larger. Thus there are comparatively few scenes 
of any kind between individuals in the early dramas of A¢schylus, 


16 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


and he learns how to handle the agon only after the introduction 
of the third actor. Indeed, in order to explain the construction 
even of highly developed Greek tragedy, we must postulate the 
influence of a ritualistic drama in which neither the hero nor his 
enemy appeared. 

In this connection it is significant that in early extant tragedies 
there is a preponderance of choral and female rdéles, over the 
short réle of the hero himself. Also, in the lament over the dead 
body of Hector in the Jliad, it is the women who carry on the 
threnos, while Priam, although he is present, does not take part 
in the lament. Thus perhaps in the preponderance of the choral 
and female réles in early tragedy we may have the survival of 
the traditional lament sung by women. Suidas asserts that 
Phrynichus was the first to represent female roles; but this state- 
ment may well mean that Phrynichus was the first to introduce 
individual female rédles of the Atossa type, not the first to have 
a female choral role. . 

When the point of attack had been set back and the hero was 
brought on the stage, his rdle slowly but surely increased in 
importance and length, and the réle of those interested in his 
fate became less important. ‘ But it is a striking fact that rarely 
in Greek tragedy do we see the fault of the hero committed and 
expiated in the same play. Old tradition evidently held the 
point of attack close to the death of the hero. As tragedy 
evolved, the dramatic emphasis and the sympathy of the spec- 
tator were shifted from the chorus to persons interested in the 
hero and finally to the hero himself who had, as it were, risen 
from the tomb to enact before the eyes of the audience many if 
not all the events that the ritual had presented in narrative form. 

In the interval of about thirty years between the careers of 
Thespis and A‘schylus, many dramatists flourished; but only 
three names, Cherilus, Pratinas and Phrynichus have come down 
to us. Cheerilus began to compete between the years 534 and 521. 
One of the titles of his tragedies, Alope, is preserved. Pratinas 
is said to have competed with Aéschylus and Cheerilus in the 
seventieth Olympiad (500-497 B.c.). He was known best as the 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK TRAGEDY 17 


writer of satyr-plays, and even the title of one of his tragedies, 
the Caryatids, is rather uncertain. The third of this group of 
tragic poets, Phrynichus, is said by Suidas to have won his first 
victory in the sixty-seventh Olympiad (512-509 B.c.). The fol- 
lowing titles of nine of his plays are known to us: the Egyptians, 
Alcestis, Anteus or the Libyans, the Danaides, the Capture of 
Miletus, the Women of Pleuron, Tantalus, Troilus, the Phe- 
nician W omen. 

The place where the primitive dramatic rituals were enacted 
by the cyclic chorus consisted of an orchestra or circular dancing 
place for the chorus in the centre of which was an altar. This 
altar constituted the ‘‘scenery” of the Greek stage, in the earliest 
period, and even in the time of A‘schylus it was a very important 
property. In the Suppliants, the daughters of Danaus cling to 
the altar. It is on this altar, or the steps of this altar, that 
Danaus mounts when he descries Pelasgus from afar. In the 
Persians, this altar becomes the tomb of Darius. In Prometheus 
Bound it represents the rock to which Prometheus is chained. 

The primitive orchestra was circular and without a scenic 
background. At first, the spectators may have been on all sides. 
From the beginning of the fifth century until about 465 B.c., 
the theatre in Athens in which the plays of A’schylus and Phry- 
nichus were produced consisted of an orchestra about ninety 
feet in diameter. The audience occupied rows of wooden seats 
extending around two-thirds of the circumference of the circle. 
On the other side of the orchestra, the ground fell off sharply 
for about six feet. There was no back-scene or stage-building. 
The performers entered the orchestra on two opposite passage- 
ways or parodoi between the end of the seats and the declivity. 
If there was a skene or dressing-room for the performers, it was 
not visible to the audience and was not used as an exit or as a 
scenic background. The early plays of Aéschylus need no other 
scenic accessories than a place for choral evolutions and the 
altar or tomb. 

The plays preceding the time of the introduction of the second 
actor by Aschylus must have contained little real dramatic 


18 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


action. The choral rdle was preponderant. The custom of nam- 


ing Greek tragedy after the chorus is evidence that whoever 
was the hero in the story, the chorus was the principal character 
in the play; but, since certain of the tragedies of Phrynichus 
are given the name of the individual hero in the story, we are 
safe in assuming that by his time the individual hero had ap- 
peared on the stage. His adversary also could have appeared; 
but so long as there was only one actor in any one scene, the 
hero and villain could not enact the agon or struggle on the 
stage. If we may judge from the fact that it is only in the extant 
plays of AXschylus written for three actors that the individual 
adversary of the hero makes his appearance on the stage in 
person, it is probable that the individual réles in these tragedies 
were usually restricted to the messenger whose function is to 
narrate, the hero or his ghost, and characters of the type of 
Atossa which are individualizations of the sympathetic chorus 
interested in the fate of the hero. The Herald in the Suppliants 
represents the adversary or villain embodied in the collective 
role of the fifty sons of AXgyptus who do not appear. The indi- 
vidual villain may also have been represented vicariously by a 
herald or messenger. Phrynichus seems to have introduced a 
eunuch in the Phanician Women. 

In these circumstances tragedy was naturally elegiac, lyric, 
and narrative. Action, as in the Persians, must have been kept 
at the minimum. Not only had the one event in the Pheenician 
Women taken place when the play began, but even this bit of 
dramatic action made possible by the announcement of this 
incident during the play was precluded by the fact that the 
defeat of Xerxes was reported in the prologue. There was little 
if any opportunity for anything but elegiac lamentation. The 
point of attack was after the climax. Some of the early plays 
may have opened with a prologue—an exposition of the cause 
for lamentation—given by an individual character, but the fact 
that Aischylus begins the Suppliants and the Persians with the 
chorus shows that the prologue was neither the absolute rule nor 
was considered the best opening. In the foreground: is the chorus 


ZESCHYLUS 19 


singing pathetic, emotional laments. Foreshadowing, fingerposts, 
suspense, surprise, struggle, climax, could hardly exist in these 
circumstances. The dramatic action in these tragedies must 
have been either in the past or behind the scenes. The events 
in the plot served as the dim background for the lyric lamenta- 
tions. These plays, like the Persians, were the vivid representa- 
tions of the one great emotion called forth by tragedy: pathos. 
They were not the dramatizations of a plot, or a dramatic strug- 
gle, but a dramatization of the effect of a great struggle on the 
mind of sympathetic onlookers. The interest did not lie in what 
was done. Aristophanes bestows high praise upon the choral 
odes of Phrynichus which, he says, were like the song of the 
nightingale “from whom, like a bee, Phrynichus sipped the fruit 
of heavenly melodies, ever bearing away the load of sweetest 
music.” And perhaps Aristotle had these very dramatists in 
mind when he affirmed that the interest in early drama lay more 
in their diction and delineation of character than in the plot. 
Beginners in the art of playwriting, he says, “succeed earlier 
with the Diction and Character than with the construction of 
the story; and the same may be said of nearly all early dram- 
atists.” This statement is strikingly true throughout the his- 
tory of dramatic art. 

By the time that AXschylus was born in 525 B.c., drama had 
become an important art in Greece. Dramatic representations 
were held yearly and a prize was bestowed upon the author of 
the play adjudged the most worthy example of dramatic art. 
The first tragic contest at Athens was probably held in 534 B.c. 
and Thespis won the prize. The Greeks had become fully con- 
scious of the art of dramatic technique. Had there not grown 
up certain definite artistic criteria by which the Greeks thought 
they could judge the merits of a play, they would not have 
instituted a contest in playwriting and the production of plays 
in which the artistic excellence of the different dramas was 
weighed by specially constituted judges. Just what these criteria 
were, we do not know; but the critical faculty of the Greeks is 
too apparent in their whole life and literature to doubt that 


20 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


these judges, even in the earliest times, were able to give reasons 
for their opinion. Undoubtedly Aischylus did not know, just as 
no genius knows, all the technical excellencies of his tragedies; 
but the statement ascribed to Sophocles, and from which too much 
has been deduced by modern critics, that “A&schylus does what is 
good but he does it without knowing it” must be utterly false 
if it is taken to mean that A‘schylus was wholly unconscious 
of certain rules and traditions in the construction of tragedy. 

The art of plotting and the depiction of character were rudi- 
mentary; but the art of drama was ready for a period of splendid 
development. Greece was awakened to full national consciousness 
and pride at Salamis and Marathon. Greek myths and legends 
and history were filled with potential dramatic situations awaiting 
the touch of a master hand. The people, under the stimulus of 
great events, were mentally alive. They were sensitive to beauty ; 
and they were highstrung, emotionally. Rarely if ever in the 
history of mankind has there been a people of such intellectual 
power and yet capable of such great emotion. Religious ecstasy 
was practically a part of their life. Plato condemns drama be- 
cause it arouses dangerous emotions. Aristotle defends drama 
on the grounds that it is the cure for painful emotions. Also, — 
the Greeks loved a contest. The great athletic games, the 
literary and musical contests, and the Hellenic interest in law 
suits, all bear witness that this people constantly indulged in 
the emotions called forth by a struggle or debate. The emotions 
evoked by a contest are the emotions aroused by drama, such as 
suspense, surprise, sympathy, exultation, sorrow. In these cir- 
cumstances, so favorable for a man who has something to say 
in the theatre, Aschylus, in about his twenty-fifth year, began 
to compete for the tragic prize. 

Aristotle’s statement in regard to the number of actors has gen- 
erally been interpreted as meaning that in early A®schylean 
tragedy two men played all the speaking réles and, after 
Sophocles added the third actor, three persons handled all the 
spoken lines by doubling in several parts. There is no evidence 
to support this view; and in certain tragedies it would be a 


AESCHYLUS 21 


physical impossibility for three actors to impersonate all the 
characters that speak lines. Aristotle was evidently discussing 
the number of speaking réles in any one scene in different 
periods of the development of Greek drama. The two earliest 
extant plays of A‘schylus, the Suppliants and the Persians, were 
composed so that only two individual speaking rdles appear in 
any one scene, although three or four separate characters ap- 
pear in the casts. The Suppliants was produced about 491 B.c. 
Thus the date of the introduction of the second actor or second 
speaking role falls probably within the first decade of the fifth 
century. 

The Suppliants is a dramatized story, but the Persians is a 
precious example of a play founded upon an event which had 
not become crystallized in legend or history. The plot is not 
entirely invented, but Aschylus composed the drama with prac- 
tically a free hand. His ideas and especially his choice of technical 
details, such as point of attack and exposition, were untram- 
melled by incidents preconceived in his own mind or in the mind 
of his audience. From events leading up to and culminating in 
the defeat of the Persians at Salamis, he was free to select that 
part of history which seemed best fitted for tragic representation 
in a Greek theatre in 472 B.c. Of all these events A‘schylus 
chose merely the dénouement of the story. The point of attack 
is placed after the climax, the battle and defeat of Xerxes. 
Even this event is narrated by a messenger; but whereas Phry- 
nichus had this event announced in the exposition of his play, 
Aeschylus shows an instinct for dramatic suspense by withholding 
the announcement of the incident until the audience has become 
interested in the characters of the story. 

The play opens, not with a speech by an individual, but with 
the entrance of the chorus of Persian Elders. This is the opening 
of primitive Greek tragedy before the actor was introduced. 
The chorus gives the exposition, telling how Xerxes has set forth 
to Hellas’ strand to conquer the Greeks. Even in this early play, 
however, Atschylus employs foreshadowing. A spirit of gloom 
and suspense is created by the lines: 


22 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Wherefore my heart is shrouded in gloom and is racked with fear 
(woe!) for our Persian armament, lest the State learn that the 
mighty capital of the Susuan land is made desolate of its sons. . . . 


The foreshadowing is continued when Atossa enters and re- 
counts a dream and tells of an omen, both of which foreshadow 
the catastrophe, but vaguely enough not to rob the moment of 
a ray of hope necessary to produce dramatic suspense: a combi- 
nation of hope and fear. Atossa speaks of Xerxes as one who 
is alive, but she has dreamed of his being thrown from a chariot. 
The chorus give hopeful reply: “In our interpretation of these 
portents, the issue will in all things prove prosperous to thee.” 
Although this play is a dramatization of a dénouement, Ai’schylus 
has produced dramatic suspense for the moment by withholding 
the announcement of the defeat. There is actual dramatic 
progression of action. 

The Messenger arrives with the news that the whole barbaric 
host has perished. The first part of this scene, in which the 
messenger narrates the one event to the chorus and the chorus 
breaks out into wails of lamentation, must be a survival of 
many a similar scene in primitive Greek tragedy in which the 
leader of the chorus told of the misfortunes of the hero to those 
vitally interested in the hero’s fate. This scene between the 
bearer of ill-tidings and the queen-mother would have been staged 
between the messenger and the chorus when only one actor was 
available. The introduction of the second actor gave Aischylus 
the opportunity of intensifying the pathos of the situation by 
having the audience witness the sorrow of Atossa, the mother, 
who is far more affected by the defeat of Xerxes than are the 
Persian Elders. 

Atossa, grief-stricken, withdraws while the chorus chants a 
canonical threnody, a survival of the ancient ritual of lamenta- 
tion, although the hero, Xerxes, is not dead. The next scene, 
however, in which Atossa returns with the elders, pours libations 
upon the tomb of her husband, and invokes his shade with pious 
supplication, is an example of the influence of the ritualistic 


ESCHYLUS 23 


worship of the dead hero on the construction of Greek tragedy. 
While the ritual was purely a religious act of worship, probably 
the presence of the spirit of the dead hero was only felt, not 
seen, by the devout; but when this ritual became an art, the 
shade of the dead hero appeared as does the shade of Darius in 
this tragedy. 

Darius rebukes the Persians, telling them that this misfortune 
is a just punishment for their pride, and he warns them of future 
defeats. This scene has been called theatrical and episodic, but 
it is actually dramatic and by no means episodic if one con- 
siders it in connection with the ritual underlying tragedy. In 
introducing it, A%schylus was not seeking an easy means of 
holding the attention of an audience by a ghostly personage, he 
was following tradition. The scene is perfectly logical and ex- 
plicable on the ground that it is a step in the progression of the 
pathetic, tragic situation. At first there is the gloomy foreboding 
of the Elders. This suspense, this feeling of impending doom, 
is intensified by the more individual, human touch of the queen- 
mother with her dreams. Then even this dénouement reaches a 
kind of crisis when the news comes that all is lost. The tragic 
note is intensified when the spirit of Darius points to the ultimate 
cause of the calamity: 


For presumptuous pride, when it is burgeoned, bears as its fruit 
a crop of calamity, whence it reaps a plenteous harvest of tears. 


The entrance of the ill-starred Xerxes, regretting that he did 
not die with the brave when Destiny overtook them, adds the 
final touch. The play ends with a heart-rending threnody sung 
_ by Xerxes and the chorus. 

However slight the plot may be, however little the story may 
progress, there is dramatic progression and intensification of the 
pathetic, tragic emotion. Had A®schylus kept Atossa on the 
stage and shown us the meeting of the mother and son, the 
emotion would have been more personal and hence deeper. How- 
ever, one does not have to explain the interest in any scene or 
play in which the pathos is gradually but so strongly intensified. 


24 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The Persians is the dramatization of a dénouement; and it is 
the dramatization of grief. Although most critics insist upon the 
superhumanity of the characters of Auschylus, this grief is very 
human. 

The Suppliants, AEschylus’ earliest extant play, is constructed 
on somewhat different lines; but it furnishes examples of certain 
survivals of the older dramatic form. The chorus has developed 
from those interested in the fate of the hero into the principal 
réle. The play opens with the entrance of the suppliant maidens, 
the daughters of. Danaus, who explain in their choral chant that 
they are fleeing from the marriage with their cousins, the sons 
of Aigyptus, and have arrived on Grecian soil. The exposition 
is continued in a scene of dialogue between Danaus and his 
daughters. The king of Argos visits these strangers and they 
implore him for protection. This scene contains a certain amount 
of suspense, as the king hesitates to promise to defend them. 
The situation reaches a kind of climax when the Danaides, almost 
in despair, vow to hang themselves with their girdles unless 
protection is granted. The king is won over but must go to 
the city to consult the will of his people. After a choral ode, 
Danaus returns with the glad tidings that his daughters shall 
be held inviolate. This news is greeted with a hymn of rejoicing; 
but at its close, Danaus descries the fleet bearing their pursuers, 
the sons of A‘gyptus, approaching the shore. Danaus with- 
draws. The chorus raises a cry of fear and the climactic 
scene of the play begins as the Herald comes to drive them 
to the ships. Here is the first extant example of a dramatic 
clash between two hostile forces on the Greek stage. The heroine 
is the chorus, and the villain is only vicariously represented. 
Yet the handling of the situation may be regarded as a very 
primitive attempt at the representation, instead of the narration 
by a messenger, of an obligatory scene. The dénouement of the 
play is brought about by the arrival of the king, who drives 
the Herald away to the ships. The play ends with a scene of 
rejoicing between Danaus and his daughters and with a hymn of 
praise as the chorus wends its way to Argos. 


¢ 


ESCHYLUS 25 


Although the play is earlier than the Persians, it shows in 
some respects a less primitive form of construction; but in the 
evolution of every art, especially drama, innovations are adopted 
slowly and many examples of reversion to type are found. Thus 
both plays begin. with the earlier choral opening notwithstanding 
the fact that Phrynichus had employed the prologue form of 
exposition. The point of attack in the Suppliants is farther away 
from the dénouement and there are more events in the develop- 
ment of the situation, more dramatic progression of the plot, 
more suspense caused by situations arousing alternate hope and 
fear, and more of a clash of contending forces than in the Per- 
sians. There is much narration and retrospection in the Sup- 
pliants, yet the later Persians contains more of the elements 
handed down to tragedy from the form and content of the ritual. 
However, the Persians is noteworthy because the one step for- 
ward that is made in the progression of the story is caused by 
disclosing the fact that Xerxes has met with defeat: an event 
which took place before the play begins. The development of 
the action through the unveiling of the past is strikingly char- 
acteristic of the technique of Greek tragedy. The dramatic ele- 
ments in both plays are overshadowed by the lyric, elegiac, nar- 
rative and spectacular elements. Exposition, foreshadowing, sus- 
pense and the obligatory scene exist in rudimentary form. The 
characters in the Persians are more clearly drawn and show more 
distinctive personality than do the more lay figures of the 
Suppliants. 

An examination of the functions of the chorus and the char- 
acters in these plays may serve to throw light on the question of 
the construction of still earlier dramas. In the Persians, the 
chorus plays its primitive rdle of those interested in the fate 
of the hero. The handling of the character of Darius, or rather 
of his ghost, illustrates one way in which the hero made his way 
onto the stage. In other words, the spirit of the dead hero 
appears. Furthermore, although Xerxes may seem to be an 
unheroic figure, yet the entrance of this important character at 
the end of the play is another example of the hesitating manner 


26 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


in which the hero of older tragedies was introduced on the stage. 

In the Suppliants, a different development of the choral rdle 
has taken place, in that the chorus, the chief character on the 
stage in primitive drama, has become the chief character in the 
plot; but, with the development of the individual hero, this func- 
tion of the chorus naturally fell into disuse. It was from the 
Xerxes-Darius type that the hero developed; and the Herald 
in the Suppliants is the first pale impersonation of the antagonist 
preserved to us in Greek tragedy. 

With the growth of interest in the individual characters such 
as. Atossa—offsprings of the chorus—and with increased empha- 
sis laid upon the hero, the function of the collective and hence 
vaguer character of the chorus will become less important. Since 
ZEschylus curtailed the business of the chorus and made the 
dialogue take the leading part in the play, earlier tragedies must 
have contained very little dialogue, for more than two-thirds of 
the lines of the Suppliants are sung by the chorus. Since it 
takes much longer to sing lines than to speak them, much more 
than two-thirds of the actual time of representation is given over 
to the choral part. Since this was the case when A‘schylus had 
two actors at his disposal, it is easy to realize the overwhelming 
preponderance of the choral réle when there was but one actor. 
The spoken portion must have been more or less in the nature 
of an interlude, just as the choral song itself finally became an 
interlude in later tragedies. 

The changes wrought by the introduction of the second actor 
tended to be more potential than actual. The Suppliants could 
be adapted for representation by a chorus and one actor by alter- 
ing only two scenes comprising only seventy lines. The first 
of these passages is the one in which Danaus, directly addressing 
the king, asks for attendants to conduct him to the temples. The 
passage could be excised without affecting the action. The second 
passage is far more important, as it is a part of the obligatory 
scene in which Pelasgus defies the Herald; but it would have 
been possible to have this scene narrated with Danaus acting 
as messenger. Such would have been the procedure of earlier 


AESCHYLUS 27 


dramatists. According to A. E. Haigh, whose opinion has been 
generally accepted, ‘““Atschylus was the first to conceive the possi- 
bility of depicting in dramatic form the central incidents of the 
story, and he effected his purpose by the employment of a second 
actor. By this expedient he was enabled for the first time to 
bring the chief antagonists face to face, and to expose them to 
view in the very act of contention; thus imparting to the drama 
that energy and vitality in which it had previously been defi- 
cient.” Significant as this statement is, one must not be led to 
believe that, after the introduction of the second actor, Greek 
tragedy became a series of scenes between the two chief 
antagonists. Even the réle of the individual hero was in a 
rudimentary form at this period; and the réle of the individual 
antagonist of the hero seems to have been even less developed. 
Even when scenes with three speaking characters had been in- 
troduced and the réle of the hero had reached a higher stage 
of development, Aéschylus did not avail himself of the opportu- 
nity of bringing the chief antagonists face to face on the stage 
in the very act of contention in Prometheus Bound or the Seven 
Against Thebes. 

The Persians shows that the actual change wrought by the 
introduction of the second actor was the possibility of repre- 
senting such scenes as those between Atossa and the Messenger, 
Atossa and Darius. The two actors made it possible to increase 
the tension of the situation by allowing a more human, sympa- 
thetic character of the type of Atossa to listen to the narration 
by a messenger of the misfortunes of the hero. And this was no 
small advance in the art of tragedy. To adapt the Persians for 
presentation by one actor and the chorus, it is only necessary 
to allow the rdle of Atossa to revert to the chorus when the 
Messenger and Darius are on the stage. The story would unfold 
just as it does in its present form; but the loss in the emotional 
effect on the audience, no longer listening through the ears of 
the mother to the downfall of a son, would be almost immeas- 
urable. The dialogue between individuals is dramatically more 
important in every way in the Persians than in the Suppliants. 


28 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Mr. Haigh has pointed out the potential changes in dramatic 
technique made possible by the employment of a second actor— 
changes seen in embryonic form in the Suppliants. The actual 
influence of the second actor seems rather to have been exerted 
in giving more opportunity for emotional effects and in allowing 
the audience to see the few events and hear of many events in 
a play through the eyes and ears of more concrete characters, 
such as messengers, heralds, and servants. Secondary roles were 
more prominent on the stage than the important characters in 
the plot. 

At this period of its development, tragedy was a cyiitals of 
the several arts. Aristotle believed that every tragedy must have 
six parts and that these parts determined its quality. Arranged 
in order of relative importance they were plot, character, thought, 
diction, song and spectacle. However correct this order may be 
for tragedy of Aristotle’s time, it must be exactly reversed to 
apply to early A®schylean drama. Aschylus was least con- 
cerned with plot and character. The singing and dancing chorus 
of fifty dominated his synthesis. 

Greek dancing was a mimetic art. It was a system of oidpaih 
mics, expressing and harmonizing with the events and mood of 
the drama, just as orchestral music in modern opera accompanies 
and expresses the dramatic action. The inner meaning of the 
tragedy came through the eye as well as through the ear. We 
may be sure that the colorful, rhythmic chorus made complete use 
of the large circular dancing place, and swept back and forth over 
it in the manifold figures of their joyous or solemn dances and 
their triumphal or sorrowful processions. Phrynichus boasted 
that he had invented “as many figures of the dance as the 
billows on the sea under a dread night of storm.” A%schylus 
could not have been far behind his rival as a mimetic ballet- 
master or he would not have won the prize in a dramatic art 
which must have resembled the modern Russian ballet in its 
effects. 

Since plot and character were to develop into the dominating 
elements of the tragic synthesis, we must deal with them at 


ESCHYLUS 29 


length. But one must never forget that Greek tragedy was a 
music-drama in which wonderful spectacular effects of human 
beings in motion emphasized and even revealed the inner soul 
of the play. 

Since their theatre had no lighting equipment beyond that of 
the sun, the Greeks could not control the light, or flood the 
scene with color in a manner befitting the mood of the tragedy. 
At first the chorus was the sole scenic background. 

About 465 B.c. a scene-building was erected on the declivity on 
the open side of the orchestra of the Athenian theatre. It was 
probably a simple structure consisting of one story with two 
projecting wings or parascenia. In the centre was a large door 
serving as entrance and exit for individual characters in the play. 
Two smaller doorways flanking the main entrance were added 
later. This building served as a dressing-room for the actors 
and as a scenic back drop for the spectators. The interior became 
that very important locality known as “behind the scenes.” 
There may have been a few steps leading up to this building. 
If such was the case, the setting was more effective according 
to modern ideas, for steps permit a more artistic grouping of 
actors and chorus, than a flat stage. In either case, there was no 
insurmountable gulf between the orchestra, where the chorus 
danced, and an elevated stage just in front of the scene-building, 
until long after Greek tragedy had passed the heyday of its 
glory. 

Such a setting formed a simple, fitting background for Greek 
tragedy. It kept the eye from wandering beyond the domain of 
the action, but it did not distract the attention of the spectator 
from the human actors in front of it. Even when the facade was 
ornamented with pillars, the effect was not so ornate as to 
detract from the color and ever-changing form of the plastic 
chorus. 

The point of attack in the earlier Persians was after the battle 
which forms the climax of the story. In the Seven Against 
Thebes the point of attack is before the battle which brings 
about the climax. This is an example of the normal develop- 


30 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


ment of playwriting. A‘schylus reduced the great amount of 
narration made necessary by the primitive form of Greek tragedy 
in which the play began even after the dénouement of the story. 
The opening scene between Eteocles and the Messenger is the 
first extant example of a scene of dialogue occurring before the 
parodos or entrance of the chorus. Moreover, this scene is not a 
mere recital of preceding events and an explanation of the situa- 
tion in narrative form as in the Persians. It is a scene of 
exposition in dramatic form. Eteocles, the hero of the play, is 
addressing the men of Thebes and exhorting them to mount the 
battlements and defend the city against the Argive army. The 
citizens were undoubtedly represented on the stage, although they 
do not compose the chorus nor do they speak during the play. 
Their presence on the stage not only keeps the first speech of 
Eteocles from being a narrative monologue but also sheds an 
interesting and dramatic atmosphere over the situation and 
immediately causes the story to unfold through the action. This 
is an excellent procedure to employ in the exposition of any 
drama. The audience is thus more aroused both sea ssent and 
emotionally than by mere narration. 

A spy, in the réle of messenger, increases the tenseness of the 
situation by announcing to Eteocles that seven Argive chiefs 
are preparing to march against the seven gates of Thebes. 
Eteocles offers a short prayer to the gods for victory, and then 
withdraws. For all this exposition A°schylus employs only three 
speeches. Then comes the long elegiac and epic portion of the 
play. The chorus of Theban maidens enters giving utterance to 
lamentations. Eteocles returns to the scene and chides them for 
their unbridled fear, since they may unnerve the warriors. The 
messenger returns and describes each of the seven Argive chiefs 
posted at each gate; and, after each description, Eteocles names 
a champion to defend the gate while the chorus breaks in with 
eager prayers for victory. A%schylus shows a feeling for climax 
in saving the disclosure of the fact that Polynices, the brother 
of Eteocles, is stationed before the last gate and that Eteocles 
will oppose him. Even in this narrative passage there is a cumu- 


ESCHYLUS 31 


lative suspense and emotion rising to a climax. The choral hymn 
following this scene gives the whole story of Laius and Cdipus 
and the causes leading up to the present situation. The dramatic 
value of this procedure of unveiling the past at this moment 
cannot be denied. Of course, the audience was in possession of 
the facts in the story not only because of its knowledge of the 
myth but from the preceding plays in the trilogy of which 
the Seven Against Thebes is the last; but his vivid résumé of 
the events leading up to the present condition of affairs drives 
the situation home with dramatic poignancy and considerably in- 
creases the emotional effect of the following scene. When the 
messenger reénters, his first words are: 


Be of good cheer, mother-bred-children, that ye are. Our city 
has escaped the yoke of servitude. 


The reassurance of the first lines makes the news of the death 
of the brothers “by mutual slaughter slain” even more of a dra- 
matic shock. Such technical excellencies are not the result of 
blind chance nor of any indefinite factor called genius or inspira- 
tion. They are the touches of a conscious artist. 

During the next choral hymn the bodies of Polynices and 
Eteocles attended by their sisters, Antigone and Ismene, are 
brought upon the stage. Then begins the canonical wail of 
lamentation over the dead heroes—a survival of the primitive 
ritual. Bury the heroes in a tomb and the scene would be a 
perfect example of ritualistic worship of the dead hero. Also, it 
seems plain that A‘schylus is aiming to foreshadow a final well- 
known detail of the story. To call the scene inartistic because 
it breaks the unity of action—a theory of which Aéschylus prob- 
ably knew nothing—and because it foreshadows the unlawful 
burial of Polynices and the resultant situation in Antigone, is 
to apply standards of criticism unknown at this period and to 
forget that at the end of almost every Greek tragedy, whether 
it belongs to a trilogy or not, the playwright foreshadows future 
events which happen after the play is ended. This is not the 


32 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


case with modern playwrights who invent their plots; but it was 
a natural procedure on the part of the Greeks. The dramatist 
and the audience both know the ultimate fate of the characters 
in these plays. It would be strange if the playwright did not 
refer to them just as Shakespeare in most of his historical plays 
calls attention to the result of the events in the future and sounds 
a note of peace and thanksgiving. 

The Herald brings the news that Polynices shall not be buried 
and Antigone bids defiance to the decree. However, there is 
absolutely nothing in the lines to inform the audience that a 
struggle will inevitably arise from the performance of Antigone’s 
pious-duty. Thus it can be categorically denied that A®schylus 
is inartistic enough to foreshadow a dramatic question that he 
leaves unanswered. It is our knowledge of the rest of the story 
which raises the question; and, in this case, our pre-knowledge 
cannot be made the basis of just criticism of the play and ought 
not to serve as a basis for argument that the scene is a later 
interpolation. The scene as it stands is explicable from every 
point. of view. | 

The réle of the hero in this tragedy shows a marked develo 
ment. Eteocles holds the centre of the stage during much of the 
play. The plot revolves about him and his will is directly re- 
sponsible for the events leading up to his death. But, although 
the rdle of the hero has increased in length and significance and 
he has become the central figure in the play, the réle of the 
chorus has not lost its important functions and attributes. While 
the fate of the Theban maidens is not entirely dependent upon 
the fate of the hero, since they are saved from danger finally, 
yet during the first part of the play the audience is in sympathy 
with them in their evident peril, perhaps at times more in 
sympathy with them than with the overbearing, violent hero. 
During many passages the audience beholds the play through the 
emotions of the chorus instead of interpreting the action in the 
light of the character of the hero. This is partially due to the 
fact that AXschylus has not thrown the character of Eteocles into 
high relief by his failure to introduce the living Polynices, the 


JESCHYLUS 33 


antagonist, on the stage. Only one side of the struggle is pre- 
sented. Had there been scenes between Eteocles and his sisters, 
had the mother, Jocasta, been introduced, had Polynices been 
shown alive, the effect of the situations would have been much 
stronger. But the playwrights of the period evidently had not 
learned the full dramatic value of such procedures. Thus these 
plays present only small, one-sided parts of the whole problem 
which forms the basis of the plot. 

It would have been very easy for A‘schylus to have Antigone 
and Ismene enact in a far more personal way the functions and 
emotions of the much vaguer character, the chorus. This would 
have enhanced the whole tragic atmosphere. The last scene in 
the play would have been far more touching, for the audience 
would have been more in sympathy with the sisters if Antigone 
and Ismene had already lived through the crisis in view of the 
spectators. If the whole situation had reached the heart of the 
audience through these characters, they would have become very 
vivid. But Antigone and Ismene enter for the first time, un- 
announced and unprepared for, almost at the end of the play. 
The traditional function of the chorus was still too strong to 
allow individual characters to replace it entirely; but the fact 
that A%schylus does introduce the sisters at all, instead of allow- 
ing the chorus to carry on the lamentation alone, is evidence that 
the value of the individual character is beginning to be felt. 

Prometheus Bound, composed after 475 B.c., shows a distinct 
advance in many ways over the Seven Against Thebes. The hero 
has at last come to his own. He is a distinct personality, a 
character commanding attention, admiration and sympathy un- 
shared by the chorus. The plot revolves entirely about the heroic 
figure of Prometheus. The rdle of the chorus has consequently 
diminished in importance. The Oceanides are not concerned 
with the plot, but simply fill the réle of confidant. One cannot 
think of the Suppliants, the Persians or the Seven Against Thebes 
without thinking of the chorus; but when Prometheus Bound is 
recalled to mind, one of the last things remembered is the chorus. 


34 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


It is the only extant Greek tragedy in which the individual hero 
is on the stage during the whole play. 

The opening of the play is in dialogue form. Hephestus, 
accompanied by Power and Force, the latter being a mute char- 
acter, lead in Prometheus and in a striking scene chain the Fire- 
Bringer to a rock. The Seven Against Thebes opens with a scene 
of dialogue and the exposition is accompanied by an incident; 
but, while the first scene of the Seven Against Thebes is short 
and two of the speeches are strongly tinged with narration, this 
scene portrays, at sufficient length, the incident before our eyes. 
We do not have to be told, as in the Seven Against Thebes, what 
is happening behind the scenes. As the attention of the audi- 
ence is caught and held by the event on the stage, swiftly mov- 
ing dialogue between Power and Hephestus unfolds both sides 
of the story. The contrast between the harsh, unfeeling attitude 
of Power and the pitying attitude of Hephestus, who does his 
duty with regret, gives AXschylus an excellent opportunity not 
only to explain how Prometheus stole the fire for men and in- 
curred the wrath of Zeus, but also to win full sympathy for 
his stoical, silent hero, the benefactor of mankind. The art of 
exposition has developed under the hand of A‘schylus. 

Having placed this situation before the audience, A‘schylus 
presents it under different aspects, without developing much 
dramatic action. Prometheus, when left alone, breaks his proud 
silence; and the entrance of the chorus and subsequently the 
presence of Oceanus furnish the opportunity for the usual lyric 
lamentation and narration of past events leading up to the 
present. At this period of the evolution of Greek tragedy, how- 
ever, the dramatist cannot harp monotonously on cne string. 
In order to vary the tone, A‘schylus introduces the character 
of Io. The character of Io has a special significance because 
she is the destined ancestress of Heracles who will finally destroy 
the vultures gnawing at the hero’s vitals and deliver Prometheus. 
The past and future career of Io is then unfolded. At the close 
of the play, Hermes tries to break the hero’s pride and silence 
in a scene of dramatic struggle of opposed wills. But Prometheus 


SCHYLUS 35 


refuses to disclose the secret of the marriage which will over- 
throw Zeus, his arch enemy. As in the Suppliants, the real 
antagonist is only vicariously represented, but Hermes is far 
more a real personality than the nameless Herald of the older 
play. The clash in the Suppliants depends on physical force. 
Here it is a clash of mighty wills. The choral odes fall into the 
background with the chorus. The individual characters are not 
mere personifications of the collective rdle. The action develops 
very little; but the individual characters are distinct entities, 
and the play could not exist without dialogue between two indi- 
viduals, as could the Persians. In the earlier tragedies the spoken 
dialogue seems but the primitive interlude between the more 
important parts of choral song; but in Prometheus Bound it is 
the choral song which makes the effect of being an interlude. 

In these four plays we have pointed out dramatic scenes and 
situations; but the art of plotting is in an embryonic stage of 
development. Dramatic action is still overshadowed by lyric, 
elegiac and narrative passages. The interest is by no means 
centred on a dramatic representation of a clash of opposing 
forces or wills. There is exposition, foreshadowing, crisis and 
dénouement. There are one or two obligatory scenes of con- 
flict. However, none of these elements of plotting stands out 
boldly. It is not the scenes of conflict, such as between Antigone 
and the Herald in the Seven Against Thebes, Pelasgus and the 
Herald in the Suppliants, or between Prometheus and Hermes, 
which remain impressed on our memory. One is not conscious 
of any sustained suspense. The crisis in the plays is treated 
hurriedly. With the exception of Prometheus Bound, a rela- 
tively late play, the opening scene of exposition is summarily 
handled. 

Eschylus did not make the most of the dramatic situations 
in these plays. He was striving for other effects. He had other 
means of holding his audience such as the spectacular element, 
the music and the dancing. He was not trying to unfold an 
intricate situation but to give a representation of an emotional 
situation suffused with a religious atmosphere. His plot is subor- 


36 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


dinate to the development of an emotional situation, such as a 
disastrous defeat (Persians); the punishment of a hero (Prome- 
theus Bound); the death of brothers, mutually slain (Seven 
Against Thebes). The defeat, the punishment, the fratricidal 
conflict, and even the underlying causes are of less importance 
to Aischylus than the resultant emotion aroused in the hearts 
of the hero and those who hold the hero dear. Events and the — 
plot itself are necessarily of secondary importance. The trage- 
dies are the representations of the emotions aroused in the hearts 
of the spectators of a struggle, rather than the representation 
of the dramatic struggle itself. They are a psychological study 
of what a sensitive, imaginative human being would feel if he 
had been told of the defeat of his king, or of two brothers in 
mortal combat, or if he saw his benefactor chained to a rock. 
The simple plot is a picturesque background. 

And all this is the more explicable if one remembers that the 
effect of these tragedies is exactly the effect of the worship of 
the dead hero. Not only in construction but in psychological 
effect does early Greek tragedy seem to be the outgrowth of a 
band of worshippers analyzing their emotions as they recall the 
deeds and death of a hero. The religious, the analytical, the 
emotional, the narrative, the heroic elements are thus explained. 
The emotions represented in these plays are rather reflective 
lamentations for what has happened in the unalterable past than 
dramatic emotions which force the hero of a drama to act in 
order to control the changing present and mould the unformed 
future. They are the passive emotions of elegy, not the active 
emotion of drama. While there are dramatic scenes and instances 
of a hero with an active will, the general effect and lasting 
impression of these four plays is tragic in the sense of sat ae 
not tragic in the sense of dramatic. 

Eschylus poured the whole richness of his art into his last 
plays, the trilogy, consisting of Agamemnon, the Libation- 
Bearers and the Eumenides, produced in 458 B.c., two years be- 
fore his death. How much he had learned from Sophocles, who 
began to compete in the dramatic contests in 468 B.c., we do not 


JESCHYLUS 37 


know; but great development in the art of playwriting had taken 
place. While tragedies will be written which revert to the older 
forms, yet each play of this trilogy is a drama in the modern 
sense of the word. Many of the scenes recall situations of the 
older plays both in spirit and construction; but the dramatic 
element at last is paramount. The final impression is dramatic, 
not pathetic. One follows the unfolding plots with suspense. 
The interest lies in the present action and its possible results, 
not in the achieved results of a past action. 

When Agamemnon opens, the Watchman is waiting wearily 
for the dawn, as he has waited year after year hoping that in 
the long night, the torch announcing the fall of Troy would 
gleam forth. He is sleepless, ‘for fear doth sit in slumber’s 
chair,” and he weeps the misfortunes of his master’s house. Sud- 
denly the beacon is seen shining. He is ready to dance the 
prelude of Troy’s fall. Soon will he carry his dear lord and mas- 
ter’s hand in his own. Then in foreboding contrast to this 
joyous outburst come the significant lines, foreshadowing 
calamity to one who knows the situation: 


For the rest, I’m dumb; a great ox stands upon my tongue— 
yet the house itself, could it but speak, might tell a tale full plain. 


The suspense aroused by this dramatic opening scene is made 
possible only by assuming a knowledge of former events in the 
story; but this knowledge granted, it is a scene of undeniable 
power. It is exposition brought about by a striking bit of 
action very vital to the plot of the play. Here is no lifeless 
messenger announcing the fall of Troy, but the fact is conveyed 
to the audience by an exceedingly clever piece of stage business. 

The point of attack is not only much farther away from the 
dénouement than in the earlier plays, but it is also placed at 
the correct point in the story. Agamemnon, in order to sail for 
Troy, has had to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia; and although 
this act was performed at the command of the gods, the mother, 
Clytemnestra, cannot forgive the deed. Clytemnestra has been 


38 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


faithless to her lord and has accepted A‘gisthus as a paramour. 
In these circumstances the return of Agamemnon is the incident 
from which dramatic action arises inevitably. Thus the point 
of attack correctly allows the initial cause to be included in the 
action. When an incident gives rise to such a question or prob- 
lem, the material for drama is at hand. 

After the dramatic opening scene, the chorus enters and, as is 
usual, gives more details in regard to events leading up to the 
present. Stress is placed on the sacrifice of Iphigenia; but, while 
the recollection of the deed of Agamemnon helps to state the 
problem of the plot and arouses suspense, it does not break 
down the sympathy for the hero which has been won for him 
in the opening speech of the Watchman by presenting him to 
the audience as a victorious hero, as a “dear loved master” who 
is returning to something which may not even be whispered. 

When Clytemnestra enters, a real antagonist appears for the 
first time in any extant A‘schylean tragedy. Here is no pale, 
indefinite character representing vicariously the force opposed 
to the hero, but a well-defined antagonist. She is a relatively 
subtle, complex, forceful personality, the greatest of a ZEschy- 
lean creations. 

After the two preceding scenes of foreboding which shed the 
correct atmosphere of gloom upon the situation, the note of hope 
and victory is stressed in the scene between Clytemnestra and 
the chorus; but at the end she pronounces the fateful foreshadow- 
ing lines: 


But even if, void of such offense towards the gods, our host should 
reach home, the grievous suffering of the dead might still prove 
wakeful—so be it fresh mischance do not befall. These are my 
woman’s words but may the good prevail and that right clearly! 


Thus, in this play with a tragic outcome, the opening is joyous, 
but with a touch of foreboding to arouse suspense. The audi- 
ence awaits the obligatory scene, the meeting of this husband 
and wife, with mingled emotions of hope and fear. 


ZESCHYLUS 39 


After a hymn to the gods the Herald enters and prepares for 
the coming of Agamemnon. This scene, however, is a reversion 
in part to the earlier type of drama. Much of it is narration. 
Clytemnestra inquires concerning the fate of Menelaus, and the 
narrative passage which follows is entirely episodic so far as the 
plot is concerned. The playwright cannot yet allow an oppor- 
tunity for poetic narrative to escape. The action, however, 
begins to unfold again as Clytemnestra describes how she “raised 
a shout of triumph in joy erewhile, when the first flaming mes- 
senger arrived by night telling that Ilium was captured and over- 
thrown.” Even here we have an example of the tenacity of the 
narrative element in Greek tragedy. The audience would have 
been more interested in beholding her emotions when this news 
came to her, than in hearing her recount her feelings, especially 
since she is actually dissembling. Had the dramatist allowed 
us to see the real effect on Clytemnestra of the news of Agamem- 
non’s return, the subtle dissembling would have been far more 
effective. 

Again there is a choral hymn and Agamemnon enters. For 
the first time in an extant A‘schylean play the hero and the real 
antagonist are face to face in an obligatory scene which has been 
prepared in dramatic fashion from the first line in the play. 
Externally here is a wife welcoming home her victorious lord; 
but underneath this joyous exterior lurks death, for in reality 
a faithless wife stands before the husband who sacrificed her 
daughter, and near her husband stands his captive mistress, 
Cassandra. Clytemnestra bids the maids spread a purple carpet 
where the hero treads, and on this purple carpet the husband 
and wife enter their home;* but in reality the carpet is deep 
blood-red and Agamemnon, the victorious hero, walks to his 
death. The chorus is suddenly haunted by shapes of fear and 
inexplicable portents hover over the scene. Clytemnestra re- 
turns and bids Cassandra enter; but Cassandra remains motion- 
less and dramatically silent. Clytemnestra enters the palace 
once more. At this intense moment, Cassandra suddenly breaks 


40 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the silence with a wild cry of woe, and there ensues one of the 
most remarkable scenes ever constructed. 

The violent death of one person at the hands of another was 
not represented in view of the Greek audience. Either the 
victim was forced off the stage by his slayer and the shriek 
betokened the death blow, or else a messenger reported the fact 
in traditional form; but A‘schylus cleverly devised still another 
means of handling the death scene. Cassandra is gifted with the 
power of prophecy and divination, but she is never believed. 
éschylus has her employ these powers to describe what is going 
on behind the scenes in a manner that must arouse any audience 
to the highest pitch of dramatic emotion. With slow but perfect 
gradation she works her prophecy to the climax, recalling the 
causes leading up to the situation. “The house reeks with blood- 
dripping slaughter. . . . Enough of life,” she cries as she goes into 
the palace to her death. As her words are not believed by the 
chorus, they make no move to save Agamemnon. His death 
shriek confirms her prophecy. Thus Atschylus conforms to the 
custom of concealing the actual murder; but, instead of a cold 
narration of the incident, he builds up a scene of complete sus- 
pense and nerve-racking emotion, leading to the climax of the 
action. Centuries will roll by before dramatic art will produce 
similar scenes in which the death is actually messengered but 
messengered in such a way that no one would prefer to have 
them enacted. Sometimes things heard are more dramatic than 
things seen, even in drama. ; 

At this moment of the action the chorus of old men breaks up 
into twelve parts. Mr. Haigh is of the opinion that “the senten- 
tious ineptitude of the old men, in the presence of the crisis, is 
one of those passages of semi-comedy with which A‘schylus 
occasionally relieves the tension of the feelings.” The theory 
of comic relief, however, is entirely an English invention and it 
cannot be admitted that this scene, in which these old men show 
confusion and hesitation, exists for the sake of comedy. If 
these speeches were given in quick succession, the effect would 
be much like that of the clamorous mob scenes in Shakespeare. 


ESCHYLUS 4I 


Instead of being inartistically comic, the scene gives the right 
atmosphere of tumultuous excitement which prepares for the 
disclosure of Clytemnestra standing over the dead bodies of 
Agamemnon and Cassandra, for it is Clytemnestra, no indefinite 
messenger, whom the dramatist brings before us. The tragic 
self-possession of Clytemnestra reflected in the almost brutal 
calmness with which she describes, defends, and even boasts of 
her deed forms an excellent contrast to the preceding disordered 
exclamations. Such changes in tone and tempo in drama are as 
effective as they are in music. The scene is intense and would be 
a fitting close to the vivid action of this drama; but A®schylus 
does not end his tragedy here nor with the lamentation of the 
chorus, the threnody for the dead hero. He introduces A¢gisthus 
who exults over the slaying of Agamemnon and even threatens 
the entirely hostile chorus. Daggers are drawn on both sides 
but Clytemnestra holds AXgisthus back, saying: “Not so, best 
beloved! there needeth no enlargement of our ills.” 

Playwriting has been defined as the art of preparation. 
Aischylus has shown that he knew the value of preparation and 
foreshadowing events throughout this play; but he did not 
recognize the necessity of introducing all principal characters 
early in the play and allowing the audience to become acquainted 
with them. The entrance of A®gisthus is perhaps more unex- 
pected at this moment than at any other. He should have in- 
tensified the situation by appearing before Agamemnon arrived, 
especially as his presence is the secret to which the Watchman 
refers with such subtlety in the opening scene. The character 
is vital to the plot; and, while A’schylus may have taken it for 
granted that the knowledge of the myth on the part of the audi- 
ence was sufficient to make the presence of A¢gisthus felt even if 
he did not appear in person until the end, the poignancy of the 
situation would have been greatly increased had the audience be- 
held Agisthus earlier in the play. Drama has reached a stage in 
development in which certain chief dramatic scenes are well 
represented but many scenes of importance are omitted. 

As Prometheus Bound shows the ever-increasing importance 


42 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


of the protagonist, so the rdle of Clytemnestra in Agamemnon is 
an example of a fully developed antagonist, who remains on the 
stage much of the time and carries on the action. The rdles of 
Cassandra, Aigisthus and even of the Watchman are evidence 
of growing skill in the delineation of distinct personalities and 
in the differentiation of character. These people are not mere 
lay figures like Danaus, or Pelasgus. While the chorus is no 
longer a vital character in the plot, its rdle is long and it serves 
as interlocutor throughout most of the play. In spite of the de- 
velopment of the individual rdles there are only two scenes in 
which the single characters carry on the dialogue. All other 
scenes of dialogue are carried on between a person and the 
chorus. The hero appears alive only once. A®schylus did not 
feel it necessary to have individuals carry on the action, al- 
though in the next play the single characters have more scenes 
together. The choral réle is still an important element in his 
scheme of play construction, for much of the exposition and 
foreshadowing is given by the chorus, while at the end there 
is a clash between the chorus and the antagonists, Clytemnestra 
and Aégisthus. Although the dramatic interest in the plot is at 
last paramount and the individual characters are well handled, 
the choral rdle retains its usual length and most of its primitive 
functions. 

The opening scene of the Libation-Bearers, the next play of 
the trilogy, contains the initial cause, the event which causes 
the action to develop. In this case it is the return of Orestes, 
seeking vengeance, foreshadowed at the end of Agamemnon. 
As a general rule the point of attack should be placed so as to 
allow the initial cause to be included in the play. A®schylus 
has learned to place dramatic scenes on the stage. Orestes and 
Pylades approach the altar in the centre of the orchestra or 
dancing place, which now represents the tomb of the dead hero, 
Agamemnon. Orestes invokes his father’s spirit and places a 
lock of hair on the tomb as a votive offering. As they stand 
there, they perceive “a sad procession of marshaled maids in 
sable mantles clad” issuing from the palace to pour libations 


ZESCHYLUS 43 


on the tomb. Electra leads this band. Orestes and Pylades go 
aside “to learn the purpose of the murky pomp.” The scene 
which follows is evidently a survival of the ritual of the worship 
in honor of the dead hero; but it fulfills a dramatic purpose in 
that it gives exposition accompanied by an event. Electra prays 
for the return of Orestes, that he may claim his father’s sceptre. 
The knowledge of the presence of the concealed Orestes arouses 
suspense in the minds of the spectators, who await the probable 
meeting with pleasant impatience. One desires to see the unex- 
pected joy of the recognition. Again /A®schylus has created 
suspense very early in the play. 

Suddenly Electra recognizes the lock of hair as belonging to 
her brother and the further proof of the presence of Orestes is 
furnished naively by the fact that Electra’s foot fits the foot- 
prints by the tomb. Orestes discloses himself; and the touching 
recognition of the brother and sister sheds an atmosphere of 
happiness over the situation which forms a dramatic contrast to 
the preceding gloomy lamentation and the coming tragedy of 
which the germ lies in this very meeting. Such contrasts are 
extremely valuable in that they throw the audience quickly from 
one mood to another and, by changing the emotions, arouse the 
sepectator to a high degree of excitement. 

The action does not stagnate for a moment, for Ofestes imme- 
diately tells of the oracle which bids him avenge his father’s 
death; and the chorus joins in a hymn of lamefttation and 
vengeance. Electra tells how Clytemnestra, haunted by fore- 
shadowing dreams, sent her with the maidens bearing funeral 
gifts. Clytemnestra dares not come herself to her murdered hus- 
band’s tomb. This passage narrates a part of the story which 
might well have been included in the action. Had A®schylus 
opened his play with the appearance of Clytemnestra, a prey to 
her conscience-stricken dreams, sending forth Electra on this 
pious mission, the whole situation would have been explained in 
action, and the dramatic intensity of the sudden appearance of 
Orestes would have been increased. A%schylus has learned to 
place dramatic scenes on the stage; but he has not acquired the 


44 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


ability to represent situations which are stronger when acted 
than narrated. The narrative passages were evidently so accept- 
able to the audience that, while certain obligatory scenes are 
represented on the stage, those of secondary importance are likely 
to be narrated. While the point of attack in these later plays 
includes the initial cause, it has not been placed far enough back 
to include situations just preceding this incident. Thus there 
is still a fair amount of exposition which must be narrated, al- 
though this amount decreases as the point of attack is placed 
farther towards the beginning of the story. 

. However, as the point of attack recedes from the climax, there 
is more opportunity for the dramatist to employ the art of prepa- 
ration, so important in creating suspense. Thus at the end of 
this scene Orestes lays his plan to knock at the door with 
Pylades as any stranger might, and if no one greets them, to 
chide some passing servant for inhospitality and to enter. Then 
when he sees A°gisthus seated on his father’s throne, before there 
is time for the question: “Whence is the stranger?” Orestes will 
slay him. Although events do not turn out as he plans, just 
enough is told to foreshadow what is to happen, but not enough 
to anticipate the outcome too plainly. Thus suspense is created. 
After a choral hymn, Orestes knocks at the door. Does Aéschylus 
anticipate in a way, the suspense aroused by the knocking in the 
Porter’s scene in Macbeth by having no answer given until the 
third time Orestes knocks? Did the dramatist recognize the 
value of suppressed excitement aroused by this device centuries 
before Maeterlinck consciously employs it? It would be rash 
to ascribe this procedure to mere chance. Such devices are 
evidence, rather, of the increasing care to arouse suspense when- 
ever possible. 

When the servant appears, Orestes bids him announce that a 
bearer of tidings has arrived. Clytemnestra enters, and there 
is an obligatory scene between the protagonist and the antagonist. 
As the mother faces the son whom she sent away as a child, 
there is suspense as to whether she will recognize him or not; 
but Orestes tells her that her son is dead, and Electra, cleverly 


AESCHYLUS 45 


seconding the ruse, pours forth her hopeless grief, with subtle 
dissembling. Clytemnestra, no less cunningly, invites Orestes in 
and tells him he shall not fare the worse for his bad news. Nor 
is this all the crafty stratagem, so interesting in such situations, 
displayed at this point in the action. When the guilty Clytem- 
nestra and her children have entered the palace, she sends the 
Nurse of Orestes to summon A¢gisthus. The Nurse is fully alive 
to the perfidy of Clytemnestra who, she says, “hid her laughter 
behind eyes that made sham gloom.” The chorus, hearing that 
the Nurse is to summon A®gisthus, artfully asks whether he 
shall come alone, or with his guards. The Nurse replies that 
Clytemnestra bids his spearmen attend him. Again A‘schylus 
has seized the opportunity to produce suspense in a minor scene. 
Craftily the chorus bids the Nurse make A®gisthus come unpro- 
tected to his doom and hints that Orestes lives. The situation 
has reached its climax. Suspense is perfect. A‘gisthus appears 
for a moment on his way to the palace. His entrance in the 
play is late; but at least A®schylus realized that this character 
must appear even for a moment. This entrance of A®gisthus 
is not merely an obvious procedure which would occur to any 
Greek playwright. Euripides, a much more _ sophisticated 
dramatist, fails to have A‘gisthus appear in his play based on 
this story. 

Once more the chorus refers vividly to what is about to take 
place within the palace. The death shriek is heard. A servant 
rushes forth wildly to warn Clytemnestra, who suddenly appears 
and grasps in an instant the whole situation as Orestes and 
Pylades drag in the body of Avgisthus. She calls for a weapon 
to defend herself. 

In Agamemnon there is an obligatory scene between the 
protagonist and the antagonist ; but, while that scene is dramatic, 
the present situation is more powerful because now there is no- 
dissembling. Both characters know the deep tragedy of the 
_ situation. The son is going to slay his mother to avenge her 
murder of his father. It would be difficult to construct a more 
intense moment of climax; and, having reached this obligatory 


46 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


scene, Atschylus does not rush through it with primitive haste. 
He arouses alternate hope and fear. The struggle is psychological 
as well as physical. He holds the situation as long as possible. 
Clytemnestra’s first cry of grief is: “Ah me! Dead, valiant 
Aigisthus, my beloved.” Orestes answers: “Thou lovest this 
man? Then in the same grave shalt thou lie.” Clytemnestra 
recalls to Orestes how she nursed him as a child with slumbrous 
eyes. The blow strikes home and Orestes wavers. He turns to 
Pylades, but his friend warns him of the wrath of the gods if 
the oracle bidding him avenge Agamemnon be not fulfilled. 
Clytemnestra uses every argument and appeal: her motherhood, 
the faults of Agamemnon, the threat of avenging Furies; but 
Orestes answers all with the telling lines: “Thou slewest what 
thou shouldst not; so suffer what should not be.” He drags her 
within the palace. A%schylus has learned not only to put the 
obligatory scene on the stage but to show all sides of the problem, 
to arouse and sustain suspense and bring a strong climax. 

The chorus intones an ode which ends with the peaceful re- 
frain: “So the light hath come”; but suddenly with dramatic 
contrast and change of emotion, Orestes is disclosed standing 
over the dead body of Clytemnestra grimly defending his deed. 
He is about to go to the oracle of Apollo where refuge is prom- 
ised. He seems to behold in terror the Gorgons, avenging 
Furies, haunting him. In vain the maidens of the chorus assure 
him they are but phantoms. He flees in awful horror. Thus 
7Eschylus foreshadows and prepares for the ensuing action of 
the last play of the trilogy. 

The analysis of this play shows how the individual characters 
have increased in importance. Their wills are active. They 
guide the action. The interest lies in the development of the 
action, not in the poetic element. Suspense and climax are well 
handled. The situations are both powerful and carefully worked 
out. Instead of being merely passed over with haste, the obliga- 
tory clash is sustained. The dialogue is full of telling lines and 
is more dramatic than elegiac. 

The opening of the next play, the Eumenides, is notable for 


ZESCHYLUS 47 


a succession of theatrical scenes and stage pictures. The ar- 
rangement of the characters on the stage forms a tableau which 
silently performs the function of exposition. The play begins 
with a scene before the temple of Apollo at Delphi. The 
Prophetess, after a prayer, enters the temple but returns sud- 
denly in fear at what she has seen within. A man “defiled 
before Heaven” is clinging to the altar and holding in his bloody 
hands a sword, while before him on thrones are the horrible 
Eumenides. With this preparation, the doors of the temple are 
opened and we behold the stage picture. Orestes is clinging 
to the altar and near him is Hermes. The Eumenides are sleep- 
ing. Apollo appears. No further words are needed. 

With the audience in possession of the fact that Orestes, still 
pursued by the Furies, has reached the temple, the action begins 
to develop. Apollo still promises protection and sends Orestes 
with Hermes as a guide to stand trial at Athens. As they retire, 
the shade of Clytemnestra rises and arouses the sleeping Furies, 
who moan in their horrid slumber and finally awake with shrill 
cries. Clytemnestra’s shade goads the Furies to pursue Orestes. 
The snaky-locked women then intone a wild choral hymn and 
Apollo drives them from the temple in a spirited scene in which 
he defends the deed of Orestes while the Furies defy the god. 
This rapid succession of incidents and stage pictures forms the 
most striking opening of all the A®schylean tragedies. Scenes 
in which the shade of a murdered being cries for vengeance, or 
in which Furies arise were to become favorite openings of later 
Senecan tragedies. This is the first extant example of this kind 
of opening scene, which will be so well handled centuries later 
by Shakespeare in Hamlet. 

The Furies who form the chorus are the antagonist in the 
plot. This is entirely a new development in the function of the 
chorus from those interested in the fate of the hero to those op- 
posing the hero. Indeed, this is the only extant tragedy in which 
- the chorus is hostile to the sympathetic character. This is so 
contrary to the tradition and spirit of Greek tragedy that it must 
be regarded as anomalous. It is evident at this time in the de- 


48 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


velopment of drama that departures from old customs are quite 
possible provided they suit the purpose of the playwright. 

The first part of this tragedy serves as a kind of prologue, in 
the sense of an opening act, leading up to the main problem of 
the play and to the dénouement of the trilogy. The problem to 
be solved is whether Orestes, having slain his mother at the 
command of Apollo, shall be freed from guilt. Contrary to 
general practice, a considerable interval of time elapses between 
the two episodes. In order to represent these opening scenes in 
action, A°schylus has deliberately placed the point of attack much 
farther away from the dénouement than perhaps it had ever been 
before. With these scenes of exposition enacted instead of nar- 
rated, the amount of narration in the play is greatly reduced. 
This procedure is a good example of the increasing amount of 
dramatic action and the consequent diminution of narrative 
and descriptive poetry. This change in the point of attack, 
the dramatic representation of what would have been narrated 
in earlier plays, and the resultant increase of the dramatic ele- 
ment constitute the most important changes made by Aéschylus 
in the art of exposition. 

The place of the action changes from the temple of Apollo 
to the temple of Pallas in Athens. The action recommences as 
Orestes throws himself upon the shrine of Pallas and, clasping 
her image, asks for protection. The chorus has plainly not left 
the stage, there being no choral chant for an exodus. It is 
simply taken for granted that the scene has changed and the 
Furies have overtaken their quarry. They threaten Orestes 
and he implores the aid of Athena in a scene of considerable 
excitement. The Goddess appears and there is a clash between 
her and the Furies. She bids a Herald summon the Areopagites 
to act as judges during a formal trial of Orestes. This is the 
first extant example of a trial scene, a situation which always 
furnishes suspense and leads to a climax. The handling of this 
situation does not differ in its broad aspect from similar scenes 
in modern drama. Orestes is cross-examined by the Furies and 
defended by Apollo. Both sides of the problem of his guilt 


ZESCHYLUS 49 


are dramatically presented in this obligatory scene. As the 
Areopagites advance to cast their votes, both the Furies and 
Apollo plead their causes in alternate couplets. A®schylus sus- 
tains the suspense as long as possible. The votes are equal, 
but Athena casts the deciding vote for the accused hero. The 
Furies rebel against the verdict and threaten dire vengeance; 
but after a rather long scene their wrath is finally appeased by 
Athena, who leads them into a subterranean temple to become 
guardians of Athens’ future power. This episode is probably 
introduced in order to glorify the city before the Athenian audi- 
ence. It is far less closely connected with the plot of the trilogy 
than the episode of Antigone is with the plot of the Seven 
Against Thebes, but both scenes are explicable unless critics 
insist upon applying as standards later theories of playwriting. 

While each play of the trilogy stands as a separate entity, if 
one considers the whole trilogy as a three-act play, certain tech- 
nical excellencies in the A%schylean form of drama appear. 
7Eschylus manifested a breadth of view, the ability to lead a 
plot through many incidents, a fine skill in foreshadowing and 
preparation, and at the same time a dramatic recalling of past 
events vital to the present. The drama gives a general im- 
pression of unity of action, and reflects unerring selection of 
most of the important scenes to be represented in action. Sus- 
pense and a progression of the action toward climaxes are pres- 
ent. Of course, there is narrative and lyric poetry in the choral 
odes, and the chorus itself still plays an important rdle; but 
the individual characters are well sustained. They are active 
and present more than one side of their nature. 

Thus Clytemnestra becomes a well-rounded character. At 
first, the calm, subtle, self-possessed queen, scoffing at significant 
dreams, she shifts to the woman fearing dreams, wishing to 
appease her husband’s spirit, but afraid to approach his tomb; 
she sinks to the level of a human being at bay, pleading with 
her son for life, and lastly fades into the spirit calling upon the 
Furies for vengeance. This development of character is made 
possible by the trilogy. 


50 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


These are the general impressions left by the trilogy and they 
bear witness of conscious dramatic skill. The A‘schylus who 
wrote the Suppliants and the Persians had learned much about 
the art of drama. He made the work of his successors much 
easier. 

One of the strongest proofs of his understanding of drama- 
turgic art appears in his ability to devise striking theatrical 
effects. Even in a period when dramatic art was slowly emerg- 
ing from a chrysalis of narration, and when the poetical element 
was so strong, A’schylus knew the dramatic value of silence 
_on the stage. In the Persians, Eschylus purposely keeps Atossa 
mute as the chorus bewails the news of the defeat. Prometheus 
is haughty and proudly silent under the torture of being bound 
to the rock. In a lost play, Niobe clings silently to the tomb of 
her children during two scenes. Cassandra is an auditor dumb to 
the questions of Clytemnestra. Electra does not speak until 
the chorus reaches Agamemnon’s tomb. It is superfluous to 
point out the emotional effectiveness of silence maintained by 
a character whom the audience desires to hear speak, and the 
dramatic contrast attained when the silence is broken. An im- 
pression of reserve power, of unsounded depth, of unknown 
possibility is created when a character keeps silent in these 
circumstances. This device became famous as “the silence of 
/Eschylus,” and in the Frogs, Euripides accuses Atschylus of 
“cajoling the spectators” by such tricks so that “the spectator 
by this quackery might sit expecting, when his Niobe would 
utter something.” Thus Aristophanes makes Euripides give the 
true explanation of the dramatic effect of silence, provided one 
grasps the full meaning of these words. The expectation or sus- 
pense aroused in the spectator is exactly the effect which the 
dramatist aims to produce by silence. Many procedures of 
playwrights are tricks which “cajole” the spectator. An artistic 
coup de thédtre is often produced by technical tricks. The dif- 
ference between a technical trick and a coup de théédtre is that 
the former is a bit of thimble-rigging which has not the deep 
emotional and psychological significance necessary to produce 


SCHYLUS 3I 


true art. Did Cassandra keep silent merely to arouse suspense, 
the procedure would be a mere theatrical trick; but, since her 
silence is due to the fact that she knows that the woman ques- 
tioning her is going to slay Agamemnon, her dumbness and the 
breaking of her silence become a legitimate coup de thédtre. 

It is the effect, not the means which must be judged. Had 
Aristophanes made Euripides criticize the effect of the silence 
of AXschylus, one would be forced to question the procedure. 
As it is, we do not need to cite the approval of Longinus who 
refers to Ai’schylus in pointing out “the eloquence of silence.” 
If it is strange that so early a playwright employed this means 
of producing dramatic effect, it is still more strange that it was 
not until the eighteenth century that another dramatist, Diderot, 
made conscious use of “the great art of silence,’ as Voltaire 
called it. 

Although the scenery was still rudimentary, A%schylus was 
remarkably successful in devising striking theatrical effects and 
stage pictures. The chaining of Prometheus to the rock, the 
lonely Watchman in Agamemnon, the symbolistic, blood-red 
carpet over which Agamemnon walks to his death, Orestes cling- 
ing to the altar, with the Furies sleeping about him, are picto- 
rially dramatic and leave a vivid impression on the mind. They 
are further evidence of the decrease in importance of the nar- 
rative element in drama, since they tell the story and make an 
emotional impression. The ear was not the only channel 
through which these tragedies reached the mind. At times the 
eye was called upon to act as medium. Early dramatist as he 
was, Atschylus laid the solid foundation upon which Sophocles 
and Euripides could build. To ascribe this development of 
dramatic art to a man who did not analyze what he was doing 
but who worked by inspiration alone, is to disregard the plain 
traces of conscious artistry. 


CHAPTER II 
SOPHOCLES 


CCORDING to Aristotle, Sophocles introduced scenery on 
the Greek stage. The statement probably means that 
Sophocles was the first to have the stage-building, which served 
in place of the modern back drop, decorated in some way to 
‘represent more distinctly the different scenes required, such as 
a temple, a palace, a forest, the seashore, etc. The facade was 
adorned with a row of columns. It is possible that the 
Aischylean skene was built in this manner and would therefore 
resemble the Hellenistic proskenion. In the Sophoclean period, 
the proskenion or colonnade was roofed over, and the skene rose 
behind it, forming a second story. The scenery introduced by 
Sophocles probably consisted of flats painted to represent the 
scene of the action and placed between the columns of the archi- 
tectural background. Such an arrangement would not seem in- 
congruous to an audience accustomed to vase paintings in which 
a single tree symbolized a whole forest or four pillars with a 
roof represented a palace or a temple. Painted scenery is in- 
dicative of a slight trend toward realism and of the diminu- 
tion of the imaginative, religious atmosphere pervading the 
earlier tragedies, in which the action revolves so much of the 
time about the altar or tomb in the centre of the orchestra. Yet 
in spite of this realistic trend, which gained more ground, Greek 
scenery was more a suggestion than a representation of a locality. 
The roof of the proskenion was practicable. In Orestes it 
represented the roof of Orestes’ dwelling, on which he stood with 
his sword at Hermione’s breast, and threatened Menelaus on the 
stage proper, which represented the street. About 428 B.c. a 
crane or “machine” was introduced by means of which characters 
could be swung through air or lifted from the stage to the roof 
§2 


SOPHOCLES 53 


of the stage-building. This contrivance was employed in the 
entrance of divine characters, especially when a god appeared 
at the end of a play to give an oracular decree. The expression 
deus ex machina (god from a machine) arose from this prac- 
tice and was finally applied to any character or incident which 
brings a plot to a somewhat forced or illogical conclusion. 

There are few interior scenes in Greek drama. They may 
have been effected by opening the large double doors in the stage- 
building. A device called the eccyclema seems to have been 
employed in connection with interior scenes. The eccyclema 
was probably a platform, resembling a section of a modern 
wagon-stage, which could be wheeled through a door and re- 
volved. Possibly such scenes as the interior of the shrine in 
the opening of the Eumenides were disclosed in this manner, 
when the stage was equipped with such scenic devices towards 
the close of the fifth century. The Greeks did not hesitate to 
put any scene on the stage because of scenic limitations. They 
changed the scene, when necessary, during the play; and they 
indicated the change by altering the setting in a simple way. 
The usual practice of observing the unity of place did not arise 
from inability to change the scenery; nor was the practice due 
to the continuous presence of a chorus on the stage. The scene 
did not change usually because the first serious tragedies had but 
one scene—the tomb of the hero. 

Another innovation ascribed by Aristotle to Sophocles was 
the introduction of the third actor or third speaking rdle. In 
primitive tragedy only one individual character appeared in 
each scene. In early A‘schylean tragedy two individual actors 
or characters carried on the dialogue, although mute characters 
might be present on the stage as in the first scene of Prometheus 
Bound. The first extant tragedy requiring three speaking actors 
in one scene is the Seven Against Thebes, which was produced in 
467 z.c. As Sophocles began to present plays in 468 B.c., the 
third speaking réle would seem to have been introduced by him 
in that year. After the introduction of the third actor, a fourth 
and even a fifth silent character were permitted to appear in 


54 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


scenes in which three interlocutors carried on the dialogue. Thus 
in the last scene of Orestes, Menelaus, Electra and Orestes are 
the speaking characters, while Pylades and Hermione are mute 
roles. 

The introduction of the third actor or third speaking réle did 
not immediately cause important modifications in the construc- 
tion of tragedy. Although all the extant plays of Sophocles 
are relatively late productions, few scenes in Ajax, Antigone and 
the Women of Trachis require three actors. However, there are 
eight to nine characters in these plays as against five to seven 
in the Atschylean tragedies requiring three actors in certain 
scenes. Euripidean tragedies contain seven to eleven roles. 
Whether the wider range of characters caused the introduction 
of the third actor or the third actor gave opportunity for more 
characters is a matter of conjecture. In either case, dramatic 
art became richer as more important characters were intro- 
duced in the play and could appear in different combinations on 
the stage. The playwrights gradually learned how to construct 
plays in which three speaking actors were employed in most 
of the scenes. 

/Eschylus had employed the device of opening a play with an 
incident connected with the plot; but with the exception of the 
Libation-Bearers, in which Orestes and Pylades appear, at least 
one of the individual characters was either a messenger or a 
protatic character, that is, a character which appears for the 
purpose of exposition and then disappears entirely. Power, 
Force, Hephestus in Prometheus Bound; the Watchman in 
Agamemnon; the Prophetess in the Eumenides are all protatic 
roles. Antigone, however, opens not merely with an incident but. 
with a dramatic clash between Antigone and Ismene, two char- 
acters vital to the plot. Evidence of an attempt on the part 
of the playwright to avoid the fault, common in expository 
scenes, of having one character inform another person of cir- 
cumstances already known by the second character is furnished 
by the fact that Sophocles represents Ismene as ignorant of the 
decree that no one shall bury the body of Polynices. Antigone 


SOPHOCLES 53 


asks Ismene to aid her in paying the last pious honor to their 
brother but Ismene tries to dissuade her. A dramatic conflict 
ensues between the sisters; and in the end Antigone goes forth 
to carry out her purpose. 

A modern playwright would hesitate to place such a vital 
situation in the very opening scene of his play. He would fear 
that the audience, with its attention distracted in many ways, 
would not grasp the full significance or feel the full emotional 
effect of such an important scene. The modern dramatist prefers 
to gain the attention of the audience slowly, to create the atmos- 
phere by which he wishes to surround his situation, to work up to 
great moments by degrees. The Greek dramatist often opened 
his play with a scene which, as in Antigone, would form the 
climax of the first act in modern drama. The evidence fur- 
nished by this play and by the later dramas of Aéschylus indi- 
cates that the practice of the Greeks was to seize the attention 
of the audience with an effective first scene, then after the in- 
troduction of the chorus, to begin to build up the situation and 
create the correct atmosphere. Shakespeare follows this prac- 
tice in certain of his plays, Macbeth and Hamlet, for instance, 
although he would not open a play with such an important scene 
as Sophocles would choose, because the usual point of attack 
in Elizabethan drama was so far removed from the dénouement 
that a vital scene would come well along in the plot. 

The distinct advance over earlier dramas to be noted in the 
opening of Antigone is that the first scene is a dramatic clash 
of wills of two important persons in the plot. Had a conversa- 
tion between two protatic characters or even one protatic char- 
acter and either Ismene or Antigone conveyed -the information 
to the audience, the spectators would have been far less in- 
terested and far less emotionally aroused. With the more pru- 
dent sister serving as foil for Antigone, both sides of the problem 
are presented, and the audience lives through the situation with 
_ Antigone. In this way, Sophocles wins sympathy immediately 
for the heroine. The Greek playwrights were learning the art 
of allowing the audience to see the problem through the eyes of 


56 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the principal characters instead of through the eyes of a sec- 
ondary character or a chorus. 

When Antigone and Ismene have left the stage, the chorus of 
Theban Elders enters and, as is usual, gives more of the expo- 
sition of events which preceded the first event of the play. The 
ode deals with the battle of the seven chiefs in which Eteocles 
and Polynices were mutually slain. With the entrance of Creon 
the edict is reiterated that the body of Polynices shall be left 
“unburied, a corpse for birds and dogs to eat, a ghastly sight 
of shame.” Hardly have the words been spoken when a man 
-who was supposed to guard the body brings the news that 
someone—he knows not whom—has buried it. 

The technical skill of Sophocles is striking at this point. He 
has allowed the audience to know who has buried the body; 
and thus, when Creon threatens the guard with death unless he 
discover the person who has performed the last rites over 
Polynices, suspense, already aroused, is greatly increased. A 
less skilful dramatist might have had a messenger announce that 
Antigone had performed the act and so have removed all doubt 
that she would be seized. Also, it is not a characterless mes- 
senger, a mere mouthpiece for narration, but a guard who brings 
the news, a character who is vitally concerned in discovering the 
person who has broken the law. Slight as the point may be, it 
shows an increasing skill in making use of every event in the 
complication of the plot, and making every role in the play a 
character that acts, not merely a person who narrates events. 

In order to obtain this effect Sophocles has practically departed 
from the chronological order of events. A strictly chronological 
sequence would place the scene in which Creon announces his 
decree forbidding the burial of Polynices before the scene be- 
tween Antigone and Ismene. It is true that the decree has been 
promulgated before this scene takes place; but we are simply 
told by Antigone that such is the case. After she has gone to 
bury the body, Sophocles shows us the scene in which Creon 
actually threatens with death anyone who buries Polynices. Had 
this scene come first we would be mildly interested but no sus: 


SOPHOCLES 57 


pense would be aroused, since to our knowledge no one would 
intend to break the law. But since we now know that Antigone 
is burying the body, every word that Creon speaks is significant 
and arouses suspense. 

The chorus at the end of its song is overwhelmed with sorrow 
at seeing Antigone led in as a prisoner. Antigone defends her 
deed before Creon and the situation is dramatically complicated 
by the appearance of Ismene who, though guiltless, swears she 
shares the blame. A further complication is brought out in 
spirited dialogue by the disclosure of the mutual love of An- 
tigone and Hzemon, Creon’s son. The scene ends with Creon 
sentencing Antigone to death. In no earlier extant Greek 
tragedy is there such a complication of plot and situation. Also, 
more events and more dramatic action have taken place already 
than in A‘schylean tragedy, and yet the play is only half done. 

After a choral ode, which is practically an interlude, Hemon 
pleads with his father for Antigone’s life. His plea is based upon 
a desire to save his father’s reputation. Already the citizens are 
murmuring against the brutal sentence. The scene rises to a 
climax when Hzmon’s plea is scorned by Creon as the mere 
pleading of a lover; and Hemon leaves with the foreshadowing 
line: 


My face thou never shall behold again. 


The Elder who speaks for the chorus in the scenes of dialogue 
persuades Creon to pardon Ismene, but Antigone is condemned 
to be buried alive in a rock-hewn cave. 

Antigone and the chorus sing a threnody in alternate song; 
and when Creon orders her to be led away to the tomb, she 
once more defends herself with touching dignity and goes forth 
to death. Still the play does not end. On the contrary, when 
all hope seems gone, Sophocles is able to arouse suspense once 
more by bringing Tiresias, the blind seer, before Creon. The 
_ prophet tells of evil omens. Creon is obdurate and rashly ac- 
cuses Tiresias of speaking falsely for the sake of gain. Tiresias 
warns him, seemingly in vain, that he will pay for the death of 


58 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Antigone with the death of his son. But when Tiresias has 
gone, Creon begins to reflect; and the chorus through its spokes- 
man bids him free the maiden from the tomb, for never did 
Tiresias speak falsely. Creon at last gives in and goes to save — 
Antigone. A song of joy puts the final touch on this reversal 
of the situation from hopeless gloom to promised light. In no 
tragedy thus far, has the pendulum-like swing of the action been 
so pronounced. A joyous scene of reassurance just before the 
catastrophe is always effective. Especially in a Greek tragedy, 
where so much of the atmosphere is sombre, the introduction 
of this hyporcheme or dancing-song serves to deepen the ap- 
proaching tragic gloom. 

The rest of the play is in narrative and elegiac form, but 
Sophocles has been careful to make even the narrative and elegy 
as dramatic as possible. A messenger brings the news to the 
chorus that Antigone and Hemon are dead. The scene is short 
and only that fact is reported. Sophocles then introduces 
Eurydice, the mother of Hemon. The intensity of the situation 
is increased by having the mother listen to the detailed recital 
of how Creon first buried the body of Polynices and then, going 
to the living tomb of Antigone, found she had hanged herself 
and that Hemon was clinging to the body of his lifeless bride. 
Finally the audience hears through the mother’s ears, not the 
ears of the chorus, how Hemon first attempted to slay his father 
and then turned the sword upon himself. Eurydice has spoken 
only once, as she entered. In stunned silence she reénters the 
palace. Creon comes with the body of his son and his wail of 
lamentation is interrupted by the news that Eurydice is dead. 
The palace doors open, her body is disclosed, and the play ends 
with this tragic picture and lamentation. 

Antigone is one of the earliest plays in which a problem of 
human life is emphasized. It is the conflict between duty to the 
family, represented by Antigone, and duty to the State, repre- 
sented by Creon. There is no such problem in the Persians, 
the Suppliants or the Seven Against Thebes. Having witnessed 
a performance of any of these plays, one would not feel impelled 


SOPHOCLES 59 


to discuss the amount of right or wrong involved in the situa- 
tion. ‘The intellectual element is stronger in Prometheus Bound ; 
but, whatever problem there is in that play, it touches human 
life indirectly. Few men. are fire-bringers. In Antigone, how- 
ever, the problem, which arises from the conflict between duty 
and man-made law, governs the selection and the conduct of 
the scenes. An audience at a performance of the Persians need 
only feel emotion. An audience at a production of Antigone 
must not only feel but also think. It must weigh the question 
in the scales of reason as well as in the scales of emotion. Greek 
tragedy was still a work of art appealing to the emotions through 
the senses; but the intellectual element has appeared in drama. 
In the nineteenth century is found the so-called “drama of 
ideas.” Antigone foreshadows from afar that development of 
dramatic art. 

The plot of this play is more complicated and passes through 
many more incidents than has been the case heretofore. The 
drama seems to be more in the present and less in the past. The 
principal characters carry on the action and there are more char- 
acters which are vitally concerned with the story. The mes- 
senger alone is the only person in the play who is unaffected 
by any turn the situation may take, for even the sentinel is in 
danger of his life unless he discovers who buried the body. The 
chorus is individualized. During the dialogue one member of 
the chorus speaks for all. The choral odes tend to assume more 
the character of interludes. While the chorus is never hostile to 
Antigone, it begins by passively assenting to Creon’s wishes but 
ends by taking an active part in winning him over to clemency. 
Suspense is not only well sustained from the first moment, but 
also there is a fine intermingling of hope and fear. The entrance 
of Eurydice, however, totally unprepared for and so late in the 
play, recalls a questionable practice of earlier tragedy. 

The most striking difference between Antigone and modern 
tragedies founded on similar situations lies in the fact that the 
young lovers, Antigone and Hemon, never meet on the stage. 
Modern versions of the story centre almost the entire interest 


60 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


on the love of the two young people. Indeed, the lost Eurip- 
idean version ended with the marriage of the pair. Thus per- 
haps even a Greek audience might have been more impressed 
had Sophocles made more use of the love motive, or at least 
had heightened the pathos of the narrative of their death to- 
gether by having allowed the audience to see them alive to- 
gether. 

Ajax and the Women of Trachis exemplify the tendency to 
introduce more action in Greek tragedy and to place the events 
on the stage. As a result, the scene of Ajax changes during the 
play, and the events of the Women of Trachis cannot happen 
during “one revolution of the sun.” The death of Ajax occurs 
on the stage, contrary to the usual practice. Heracles endures 
his mortal agony of the poisoned robe in a long scene and is 
borne forth just before his actual death. The Greek playwright 
was not bound by rules; and Sophocles was not allowing tra- 
dition or convention to hinder him from complicating the plot 
and staging scenes which were originally narrated just as 
Aeschylus had narrated the suicide of Ajax in his play on this 
theme. ; 

The Sophoclean version is the first extant tragedy containing 
a monologue on suicide. Such meditations on death were imi- 
tated by Seneca. The playwrights of the Renaissance were in- 
spired to introduce similar passages in their tragedies. Hamlet’s 
soliloquy is indirectly derived from such monologues as the one 
spoken by Ajax. 

In dealing with the subject of the vengeance siialale upon 
Clytemnestra by her children Electra and Orestes, a theme which 
Eschylus had already dramatized, Sophocles was confronted by 
a problem which resulted from the fact that the Greeks gradu- 
ally discarded the custom of writing three plays on one subject. 
As the framework of the single play was enlarged and more 
of the story was represented in action, the form of the trilogy 
on one subject became less necessary. At the same time, the 
dramatist had not yet enlarged the scope of the single play so 
that all of the material used in the trilogy could be included 


SOPHOCLES 61 


in one tragedy. A compromise had to be effected between 
the older tragedy with few events and the trilogy with many 
events. The problem which Sophocles had to solve in writing 
a play on this subject was how to include more events in 
the plot in response to the demand for more action and yet 
avoid leaving unanswered the question of the fate of a matricide 
—a question which A‘schylus had been able to dispose of in 
the third play of his trilogy. Since he chose the identical point 
of attack which A‘schylus had selected and since the dénouement 
is fixed by the death of Clytemnestra, the greatest change in the 
construction of the play had to take place in the scenes leading 
up to the climax. 

Sophocles opens his play, as does A‘schylus, with the return 
of Orestes, accompanied by Pylades, but he has introduced as 
a third character the old Guardian. They plan that the old 
Guardian shall bring the false news of how Orestes has been 
killed by a fall from his chariot. They hear a cry of woe from 
Electra within the palace, and Sophocles is careful to remove 
these characters from the stage instead of allowing Orestes to 
see and recognize Electra when she enters, as does Aé‘schylus. 
Electra, herself, then recalls the murder of her father and prays 
for the return of Orestes. The chorus of Mycenean women and 
Electra in a long scene give the complete exposition by no means 
in plain narrative but in a dialogue in which the chorus begs 
Electra to be calm, to endure, and not to heap ill upon ill. 
Electra paints a vivid picture of the sufferings she endures. She 
lives like a stranger in her father’s hall, reviled by Clytemnestra, 
with A®gisthus on her father’s throne. The chorus in the 
Aeschylean play has the same hostile attitude that Electra has; 
but Sophocles has made his situation somewhat more dramatic 
and has heightened the uncompromising character of Electra by 
conceiving the chorus as more conservative and as counselling 
patience and even forbearance. 

Sophocles has thus far followed the Libation-Bearers on broad 
lines. He has caught the attention of the audience by an im- 
portant event and then allows the dialogue between Electra 


62 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


and the chorus to give the exposition; but Sophocles dwells 
longer upon the exposition and gives more details because he 
cannot rely upon any preceding tragedy of Agamemnon to cre- 
ate the correct atmosphere or to explain the situation. Also, he 
must paint Clytemnestra as darkly as possible, since his audi- 
ence has not actually seen her murder her husband and espe- 
cially since he must justify entirely the coming matricide. He 
cannot allow the question of Orestes’ guilt to arise since he has no 
third play in which to solve the question. 

From this point until the meeting of Electra and Orestes, 
Sophocles devises wholly new material in order to introduce more 
dramatic action. In the Libation-Bearers, Electra has been sent 
by Clytemnestra to pour libations on her father’s tomb; but 
Sophocles introduces the character of Chrysothemis, the sister of 
Electra, to perform this act. In Antigone Sophocles has built 
up a strong scene by differentiating the rdles of Antigone and 
Ismene, which in A’schylus’ Seven Against Thebes were quite 
similar. As is so often the case with playwrights of all times, 
Sophocles employs a situation which he had previously found 
to be effective. The situation in Antigone is practically trans- 
ferred to Electra. Chrysothemis, like Ismene, tries to win over 
her uncompromising sister to a calmer and more obedient frame 
of mind. Electra scorns her sister and ranges her among her 
enemies. The clash of wills is even more violent than in the 
parallel scene in Antigone and seems to heighten our impression 
of the stronger sister, firm in her purpose of vengeance. Finally 
Electra persuades Chrysothemis not to bear the appeasing gifts 
from her mother, troubled by dreams, to Agamemnon’s tomb. 

In the Aschylean tragedy the rdle of Clytemnestra consisted 
of but forty-six lines and she did not appear until after the 
meeting of Electra and Orestes. Sophocles, however, brings her 
on the stage at this point and, in a scene of mutual denunciation 
between mother and daughter, he drives home the impression of 
the unnatural wife and mother. This scene serves the purpose 
of representing vividly to the audience the picture that Aischylus 


SOPHOCLES 63 


had given them in Agamemnon. This is a second scene of 
dramatic action added by Sophocles to his plot. 

The Guardian thereupon brings the false news of the death 
of Orestes which he describes at length. With the exception of 
the exposition this is practically the only narrative passage in 
the play, and it is plain that the dramatic element has become 
far more important than the narrative element. Yet, at the 
same time, this passage is evidence that playwrights still con- 
sidered that opportunities for rhetorical description and narra- 
tion could not be allowed to escape. Although the audience 
knows that every detail of this description of Orestes’ death 
is false, and although it is only necessary so far.as the plot is 
concerned to give enough circumstantial evidence of his death 
to convince Electra and Clytemnestra, this description goes into 
minute detail and is eighty-three lines long—almost twice as 
long as Clytemnestra’s réle in the A‘schylean tragedy. 

This device of reporting that Orestes is dead is one of the most 
important elements in the Sophoclean play, and it seems to 
have been suggested to Sophocles in a curious way. In the 
7Eschylean tragedy Orestes plans to enter the palace and, pre- 
tending to be a Phocian stranger, to slay A®gisthus before the 
king can ask ‘Whence is this stranger?” There is no idea of 
giving false news of Orestes’ death until Orestes unexpectedly 
faces his mother instead of A‘gisthus. It is then on the spur 
of the moment that he tells of his own death and A’schylus does 
not explain why, although one may infer that it is to disarm 
suspicion, but it is mere inference. Sophocles builds up the 
plan of the false news from the start and bases much of his 
action on it; but the only explanation that he gives is that 
Orestes expects, out of this report, to blaze forth star-like, living 
on his foes, since men who falsely pretended death, when they 
came back home have been more prized than ever. Thus 
Sophocles seems to have appreciated the theatrical effect of 
this device, but, while he makes more use of it than does 
Zéschylus, he has not sufficiently motivated it. 

Also, Sophocles has made Electra, who is of secondary im- 


64 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


portance, in the Libation-Bearers, the central figure of his play. 
He develops her character and her will to act. At first Electra 
is indulging in lamentation but finally the chorus feels it nec- 
essary to try to restrain her rising anger. The sight of 
Chrysothemis bearing offerings at her mother’s request to Aga- 
memnon’s tomb increases her righteous wrath. Unlike Hamlet 
in a similar situation, hers is no hesitating melancholy. Then, 
as Clytemnestra taunts her, degree by degree the will to act 
grows stronger. ‘Through ever-rising intensity, not abruptly, 
the situation passes from the pianissimo of the first lamentation, 
to the mezzo forte of the scene with Chrysothemis to the forte 
of the open defiance of Clytemnestra. Such dramatic crescendo 
is only in embryonic form before Sophocles. Finally it is with 
great art that Sophocles delays the appearance of Orestes and 
the recognition until Electra has passed through all these emo- 
tions and we have beheld her intense though heroic suffering at 
the news of Orestes’ death. The great improvement over 
/Eschylus is manifest in this conscious art of deftly handling 
the emotions of his heroine. 

It is by innuendo and suggestion in Atschylus’ play that the 
audience becomes conscious of the brutal satisfaction of Clytem- 
nestra at the news of her son’s death; but Sophocles, in order 
to justify the matricide, has Clytemnestra rejoice openly. Electra 
is left alone with the chorus, but their lamentation is interrupted 
by Chrysothemis who rushes to her with the glad tidings that 
Orestes must live, since she has discovered his votive lock of 
hair on their father’s tomb; but Electra turns her joy to grief 
by telling her the news of Orestes’ death. In a passionate scene 
Electra vows to wreak vengeance on the guilty pair. Chryso- 
themis tells her such a vow is madness and leaves Electra to 
act alone. | 

The entrance of Orestes after these new situations marks the 
point at which Sophocles’ plot begins to run parallel to the older 
plot; but a comparison of the two recognition scenes shows how 
much more careful the later dramatist has been to employ every 
means of complicating the situation and prolonging the sus- 


SOPHOCLES 65 


pense. In the Libation-Bearers Orestes recognizes Electra as she 
issues from the palace and, on hearing her filial lamentation, dis- 
closes his identity. In Electra Sophocles has been careful to 
remove Orestes from the stage so that he cannot recognize 
his sister by overhearing her words of sorrow. Thus the scene 
of recognition is artistically and logically prolonged. Further- 
more, the striking theatrical trick of having Orestes place in 
Electra’s hands an urn supposed to contain his own ashes, has 
enabled Sophocles to devise an opportunity for arousing deep 
sympathy, as Electra weeps over the urn. This leads to the 
recognition of Electra by Orestes; and then, still making the 
most of the situation, Sophocles prolongs the scene by having 
Orestes gradually prepare her mind for the discovery of his 
identity leading her through surprise, conjecture, and hope to 
conviction. The art of prolonging suspense and of arousing sym- 
pathy, has developed greatly since A®schylus constructed his 
scene of recognition. 

The Guardian, who has been keeping watch, now bids the 
brother and sister go within, where Clytemnestra is alone. The 
song of the chorus, as the women wait in suspense, creates an 
effective tension. From this moment the action fairly rushes 
to the dénouement. Instead of messengering the death, Sopho- 
cles has Electra suddenly come forth and the following dia- 
logue depicts dramatically the murder without having it com- 
mitted on the stage. 


ELECTRA 

A cry goes up within:—hear ye not, friends? 
CHORUS 

I heard, ah me, sounds dire to hear, and shuddered. 
CLYTEMNESTRA (behind the scenes) 

O hapless that I am! A®gisthus, where art thou? 
ELECTRA 

Hark, once more a voice resounds. 
CLYTEMNESTRA (within) 

My son, my son, have pity on thy mother! 


6b THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


ELECTRA 
Thou hast none for him, nor for the father that begat him. 
CHORUS 
Ill-fated realm and race, now the fate that hath pursued thee 
day by day is dying—is dying. 


Clytemnestra cries out again and then silence falls. 

Orestes and Pylades appear for a moment and Orestes says: 
“Tn the house all is well if Apollo’s oracle spake well.” Thus 
does Sophocles once more successfully palliate the matricide by 
placing the blame, if blame there be, on Apollo. At the ap- 
proach of A®gisthus, Orestes and Pylades retire, leaving Electra 
to face Aigisthus, who comes with sinister joy to hear the con- 
firmation of the news of Orestes’ death. Electra answers his 
questions with fine irony and dissembling, and he commands that 
the gates of the palace be opened. The doors swing back and 
a shrouded body is disclosed. Thinking he will see the dead 
Orestes, Aigisthus removes the shroud and beholds the face of 
Clytemnestra. 

It is scarcely necessary to call attention to this remarkable 
coup de thédtre with its attendant emotions of suspense and sur- 
prise. It would be impossible for a modern dramatist versed 
in every theatrical trick to devise a more effective scene. 

The play ends at the climax as Orestes, pouring forth his ~ 
wrath, drives the miserable AXgisthus within and slays him; 
and in four lines the chorus justifies the whole procedure. There 
is no thought of punishment of Orestes; no foreshadowing of a 
trial of the hero. 

Although Electra is longer than the Libation-Bearers, the 
greater length is not due to narration or lyric passages but to a 
greater number of events and dramatic situations placed be- 
tween the point of attack and the climax. The action of the 
Libation-Bearers gives one the impression of jumping from one 
situation to another. Then the situation is held stationary. In 
Electra the action develops gradually but surely and one situa- 
tion blends into another. The characters appear and reappear 


SOPHOCLES 64 


in Electra with more motivation. Sophocles, like A®schylus, 
fails to introduce A%gisthus before the very end of the play, 
yet he motivates the late entrance by supposing that A®gisthus 
is away from the palace. A modern dramatist would construct 
a scene in which Clytemnestra and A¢gisthus would be together 
on the stage; but in the three Greek plays on this subject there 
is no scene between these important characters. While the play- 
wrights were gradually learning to place the principal charac- 
ters together in some obligatory scenes, they still made their 
pictures somewhat one-sided by failing to represent all obliga- 
tory scenes. 

Aristotle considered CGdipus Rex a masterpiece of Greek 
tragedy, although, according to tradition, it failed to receive 
first prize when it was produced. It is difficult to point to a 
finer piece of dramatic art, especially in respect to the construc- 
tion of the plot which is based upon the following story. 

Laius asked the oracle of Apollo whether a child would be 
born to him and his wife, Jocasta. The reply was given that 
a son would be given to him but that he would be slain by the 
child. When the babe was born, Jocasta gave it to a servant 
with orders to expose it so that the oracle would not be ful- 
filled. The man gave the child to a Corinthian herdsman who 
took it to Corinth and bestowed it upon the king, Polybus. 
The king reared the boy as his own son and named him CEdipus. 
Having grown to manhood, (Edipus was taunted by a young man 
with not being the true son of Polybus. (C£dipus consulted the 
oracle of Apollo; and, when the answer came that he would slay 
his father and marry his mother, he resolved not to return to 
Corinth. Travelling in the opposite direction, he met a man at 
a crossroad. The right of way was disputed. (Edipus slew the 
man and all but one of his retainers. He came to Thebes, solved 
the riddle of the Sphinx, was proclaimed king and married 
Jocasta. A plague fell upon the city. An oracle declared that 
the plague would abate only when the slayer of Laius was dis- 
covered and driven from Thebes. (Edipus discovered that the 
man he had slain was Laius, his father, and that Jocasta was 


68 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


his mother. Jocasta hanged herself. C£dipus punished himself 
by self-inflicted blindness and went into exile. | 

Such is the tissue of improbability, murder, suicide, torture 
and incest which Sophocles transformed into lofty tragedy, ap- 
palling in its inevitability. 

Aeschylus had dramatized the myth in the form of a trilogy 
consisting of Laius, Gidipus and the extant Seven Against 
Thebes. By employing the trilogy he had produced a work 
which is comparable to a Shakespearean play in the amount of 
action included within the three plays. The Shakespearean point 
of attack, however, would probably have been a scene in which 
‘Laius asks the question of the oracle at Delphi and would have 
been much farther back than the A‘schylean point of attack 
which was probably placed to include only the murder of Laius. 

Sophocles, however, had a delicate and difficult task to perform 
since he discarded the trilogy dealing with one subject and had 
to include this story in one tragedy. Furthermore, the Athenian 
audience was evidently no longer content to have a play consist 
mainly of narration. Action was necessary, and yet the story 
contains many details to be explained. Action could be furnished 
by compressing into one tragedy the material which A%schylus 
had employed for two plays; but tradition held the point of at- 
tack so close to the dénouement that Sophocles begins his action 
with the promise of (dipus to do all in his power to abate the 
plague. Any playwright, except a Greek or one who is master 
of the technique of Greek drama, would find it very difficult to 
choose this point of attack and write a play which would consist 
of anything but exposition. Even if most of the play were given 
up to exposition, it would be difficult to make the audience under- 
stand the whole situation, since a spectator is rarely capable of 
fully comprehending many details unless they are represented 
before his eyes instead of being narrated without action. 

In Gdipus Rex every event is the result of withdrawing a 
veil from the past and almost every event turns out contrary to 
the hope and expectation of the audience. ‘These events are 
disclosed in almost complete inverse order to that of the temporal 


SOPHOCLES 69 


sequence. For these reasons, this tragedy is one of the most re- 
markable pieces of dramatic construction in existence. 

Exposition consists of making the audience acquainted with 
past events which lead up to a dramatic problem. Exposition 
may be carried on by means of narration or by representation 
of the incidents which cause the dramatic problem to arise. 
Critics are likely to make the mistake of believing that any 
narration of an event which precedes the initial cause is exposi- 
tion provided it is merely explanatory, but if the narration or 
representation of an incident in the past causes a development 
of the present situation, it becomes dramatic action. Since every 
disclosure of the past in Gidipus Rex causes a development of 
the plot, exposition is reduced to a minimum. What would nor- 
mally be exposition becomes action. 

The opening scene of the play is a striking tableau in which 
(Edipus receives the band of suppliants, moaning citizens of all 
ages. Only the first eighty-six lines can be called exposition and 
even in this first scene the narrative element is rendered entirely 
unobtrusive because of the interest in the expressive, massive 
stage picture, and because the details of the present situation are 
brought out through the incident of the people of the stricken 
city begging CEdipus to find some means to alleviate the plague 
which is upon them. Attention is immediately fastened upon the 
question of what (Edipus can do. An atmosphere of suspense 
and of tragedy pervades the scene; but C£dipus wins our sym- 
pathy and arouses hope when he tells the plague-tormented citi- 
zens how his heart bleeds for the people and that he has sent 
Creon to the Delphian oracle to ask by what act or word he can 
deliver the city. From the moment that Creon arrives the un- 
veiling of the past begins. The oracle hag said that the mur- 
derer of Laius must be punished in order to purge the land of its 
misfortunes. In these circumstances it is not only natural but 
essentially dramatic for Creon and Cdipus to begin the investi- 
gation of the murder of Laius, in regard to which the principal 
known facts are disclosed. Since this constitutes the first step 
in solving the problem upon which the plot rests, it is action. 


70 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Exposition consists in stating a dramatic problem. Action con- 
sists in solving the problem. 

The whole development of the plot depends upon the discovery 
of the murderer of Laius. Sophocles discloses the truth grad- 
ually, leading us from conjecture, through suspicion, to certainty. 
He carefully avoids letting the audience penetrate the mystery 
until towards the close of the play. Yet almost every Greek 
spectator must have known that CEdipus was the slayer of his 
father Laius. The question arises, therefore, whether the audi- 
ence felt any suspense in regard to the ultimate discovery or 
any surprise when the horrible fact is disclosed. In all proba- 
' bility, however, Sophocles felt that if he did not state this fact 
plainly, he could rely upon the rapidity of his action and upon 
his constant insistence on the hopeful aspect of the situation to 
create a conflict of emotions in the-audience. No matter how 
well the spectator may know the sad outcome of any tragedy, 
while the tragedy is being enacted he shares every ray of hope 
which comes to the sympathetic character. He views the tragedy, 
for the most part, through the eyes of the hero. He hopes with 
the hero; he despairs with the hero. But at times his knowledge 
of the unhappy ending breaks in upon him with a vague but 
nevertheless awful irony. This conflict of emotion arises during 
a representation of Gidipus Rex; but it would have been de- 
stroyed, in a great measure, had Sophocles informed the audi- 
ence at the beginning of the play that CEdipus had slain Laius. 
Had he done so, the tragic irony of beholding Gdipus trying to 
discover the murderer of Laius would still remain, and the audi- 
ence would still feel suspense. By not directly informing the 
audience, he preserves tragic irony, since the audience is vaguely — 
conscious of the lrrrible discovery that Cdipus will make. 
Since this consciousness is vague, a greater amount of suspense 
and surprise still remain as the plot unfolds. The effect of this 
play on the stage would be far less dramatic had Sophocles called 
attention directly to the fact that Cédipus had slain Laius. The 
master hand is betrayed by the handling of such apparently 
minor considerations which in reality are of prime importance. 


SOPHOCLES aI 


It is difficult to find a play in which there is more poignant 
irony in the situation; and Sophocles makes the most of it, first 
in having Gidipus promise the senators to do all in his power to 
aid the suffering people, secondly in having Cdipus swear to 
discover the guilty man, not knowing that he is directing the 
violent imprecations against himself. 

With consummate skill, the dramatist has involved the three 
principals in the plot and has made (:dipus the character who 
takes every step to solve the mystery and brings about his own 
doom as he tries to save the city. Cdipus may be haughty and 
guilty of rashness, but his faults are overshadowed by his bravery 
and sense of justice, for when the unbelievable truth begins to 
dawn he goes heroically on, in spite of every entreaty to give up 
the attempt to solve the mystery. ‘Tiresias, Jocasta, the old 
shepherd, implore him in vain to seek no farther. Such heroism 
is awful in its grandeur. 

Sophocles unfolds the plot with careful selection of scenes. 
One of his greatest problems in the construction of the play must 
have been to find incidents to keep the action developing inevit- 
ably, but slowly. The first step towards the solution of the prob- 
lem is the summoning of Tiresias. The blind seer does not wish 
to answer the question. (E£dipus’ calmness gives way and his 
mood becomes angry and threatening. After creating suspense 
by refusing to answer, Tiresias accuses (dipus of being the 
abominable contaminator of the land and he hints at the horrible 
relationship in which (Edipus lives with Jocasta. 

It is daring on the part of the playwright to have the actual 
truth in regard to the situation come out so early in the play; 
but Sophocles has been unerring in his order of scenes. Tiresias’ 
knowledge springs from his second sight, and no concrete evi- 
dence has been offered by him or anyone else thus far to make 
one give credence to his words. The results of his accusation 
are to make Cdipus impress the audience with the seeming pre- 
posterousness of the idea and with his innocence, and also to 
make him accuse Creon of having invented the tale to ruin him. 
This development brings a new complication to the plot and 


We THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


furnishes opportunity for an obligatory scene between C£dipus 
and Creon and Jocasta. Had the accusation of Tiresias been 
placed by Sophocles after the slightest suspicion of the truth 
had entered the mind of Cidipus, the whole delicate mechanism 
of the plot would have been thrown out of gear. This is just 
the right kind of incident to retard dramatically the development 
of the plot which otherwise might have come to a rather hurried 
ending unless it were held back by undramatic means such as 
choral odes or situations drawn out at length. 

One hesitates to call Sophocles clever in connection with this 
titanic tragedy; but the manner in which he sheds an atmosphere 
of hopeful reassurance over every situation up to the end and 
makes every act of @dipus when he seems about to prove his 
innocence bring his own doom nearer, must be sheer conscious 
cleverness on the part of the playwright. The play opens with a 
majestic but gloomy scene of prayer for release from the horror 
brooding over the people, but (Edipus promises his aid. Already 
he has sent to Apollo for help. When Creon arrives from Delphi 
and is asked concerning the answer of the god, he says the reply 
is favorable. The Priest’s last words in this scene and indeed 
the whole choral ode following it sound a note of hope. Qidipus 
summons Tiresias as the man who can aid them. Then the 
pendulum swings back to fear as Tiresias accuses him; but 
(Edipus’ anger and finally Jocasta’s words that nothing in human 
life turns on the soothsayers’ art give a reassuring touch. Then 
Jocasta tries to dispel any possible fear by telling what she 
knows of the murder and her words of reassurance create the 
first shadow of doubt in the mind of Gdipus. Jocasta assures 
him .that the old herdsman, the only surviving witness, said that 
“robbers,” not a single man, slew Laius. Then comes the mes- 
senger with the news that Polybus, the supposed father of 
(Edipus, is dead and with intense relief Jocasta summons (Edipus 
to hear the._news that frees him from the fear of slaying his 
father as the oracle foretold he would. (C&dipus, however, ex- 
presses the fear that the rest of the oracle, that he would marry 
his mother, might be fulfilled. Again come words intended to 


SOPHOCLES 73 


reassure him. He is not the son of Merope but a foundling, 
whom the old herdsman gave to the messenger. It is then that 
the incredible truth dawns on Jocasta and she implores him to 
delve no further into the mystery of his birth. Then comes the 
herdsman and he is tortured until he speaks the unspeakable: 
Gidipus is Jocasta’s son. With consummate art Sophocles 
reaches one of the greatest climaxes of all drama. 

Let the undramatic critic analyze the narrative story and he 
can prove that the whole plot is a tissue of improbabilities. Why, 
he asks, did not G:dipus inquire whether Jocasta was older than 
he before he married? Or he may ask, with (Edipus, why Tire- 
sias, with his second sight, did not expose the deed of CEdipus 
long before. But only the meticulous critic in his study is capa- 
ble of such hopeless comments. An audience feels that the whole 
development of the story is crushingly inevitable. Aristotle indi- 
cates how Sophocles has produced this effect when he says that 
there should be nothing improbable among the actual incidents 
but that if the improbability be unavoidable it should be outside 
the tragedy, as in Gidipus Rex of Sophocles. No matter how 
unbelievable any incident may be, if the audience knows that 
the incident has taken place before the play begins, whatever 
action arises from it seems perfectly probable. All the events 
upon which the action turns have happened in the past. Hence 
these events are unchangeable. The action consists of the dis- 
covery of unalterable facts. Therefore, the action seems in- 
evitable. One may escape fate; but there is no escape from the 
past. Thus does Sophocles transform the improbable into the 
inevitable; and we have in Gidipus Rex a brilliant example of 
the development of a plot by the withdrawal of veils from the 
past. This procedure is inherent in primitive Greek tragedy be- 
cause of the influence of the ritual of the worship of dead 
heroes. This play shows the artistic culmination of the pro- 
cedure and not until Ibsen shall we find the same method so suc- 
cessfully employed to produce the effect of the inevitability of the 


action. 
Sophocles was unerring in his choice of characters; and the 


44 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


principal characters are on the stage whenever they ought to be. 
(Edipus is before our eyes almost all the time. The hero has 
come to his own. It is the will of Gidipus which sets the action 
in motion and every event of the present is the result of his 
mental attitude. The choral réle is short but the odes are not 
mere interludes. They give the finishing touch to the preceding 
scene, accentuating the supplication, hope, suspense or despair 
as the case may be. They are dramatic and not mere lyric 
embroidery of the theme as they become in later plays. 

Both Aschylus and Euripides had dramatized the story of 
Philoctetes before Sophocles chose it as the subject of one of his 
last tragedies, produced in 410 B.c. According to the epic legend 
Philoctetes, suffering from a noisome wound, had been aban- 
doned by the Greeks and left on the island of Lemnos as they 
sailed to the siege of Troy. After ten years of undecisive strug- 
gle, the chieftains of the Greek hosts learned from a soothsayer 
that Troy could not be captured until Philoctetes was brought to 
Troy with the death-dealing arrows of Heracles and until Neopto- 
lemus came from Scyros and received Achilles’ armor. Diomedes 
performed the task of inducing Philoctetes to come with his 
arrows; and Odysseus succeeded in bringing Neoptolemus to 
Troy. 

fEschylus substituted Odysseus, Philoctetes’ worst enemy, for 
Diomedes and thus created a dramatic situation. Euripides in- 
troduced a dramatic struggle by having two rival embassies, one 
Greek and the other Trojan, visit Philoctetes and try to win the 
support of the hero. From Dion Chrysostomus’ account of the 
play, the inference may be drawn that the climactic scene was 
characteristically Euripidean in that the rivals argued their 
case in the oratorical style of a court of law or a public debate. 

With the sure touch of a master craftsman, Sophocles com- 
bined the two episodes of the underlying myth by introducing 
Neoptolemus into his play. As Professor Jebb has pointed out, 
“Tt is no longer only a critical episode in the Trojan wars, turn- 
ing on the question whether the envoys of the Greeks can 
conciliate the master of their fate. It acquires the larger signifi- 


SOPHOCLES 6 


cance of a pathetic study in human character—a typical illustra- 
tion of generous fortitude under suffering and of struggle 
between good and evil in an ambitious but loyal mind.” This 
tragedy is by no means lacking in suspense or in unexpected 
turns of the plot. Yet the chief interest lies in the psychological 
reactions of the three principal characters. Philoctetes, basely 
wronged by Odysseus, holds the fate of the Greeks in his quiver. 
Neoptolemus, loyal as a friend, loyal as a Greek, must bring 
Philoctetes by deceit to Troy. Odysseus, loyal to the State, will 
sacrifice all for victory. 

Euripides opened his play with a formal prologue spoken by 
Odysseus, but Sophocles, by the introduction of Neoptolemus, 
is able to place two important characters on the stage for the 
exposition. They have arrived at the cave in which the unfortu- 
nate Philoctetes lives. Odysseus tells Neoptolemus in a few 
words that they are at Lemnos where Philoctetes was abandoned. 
The rest of the expository scene is combined with the incident 
in which Neoptolemus discovers the cave and the bed of leaves 
and the rough-hewn cup of Philoctetes. When Odysseus lays his 
plan before Neoptolemus, the exposition glides unconsciously 
into action and skilful preparation for the scenes to come. 
Neoptolemus is to win the friendship of Philoctetes by saying 
that he, Achilles’ son, is deserting the Achezans who have wronged 
him by bestowing Achilles’ armor on Odysseus. The hesitation 
of Neoptolemus to practice such guile on an innocent man fore- 
shadows the development of the plot; but he consents at last. 
Finally Odysseus says that, should it seem that Neoptolemus is 
wasting time, he will send one of their followers disguised as a 
sea captain from whom Neoptolemus must gather the meaning 
of his words though he speak in parables. 

One of the important elements in constructing plays is to 
arouse the curiosity of the audience so that they are anxious to 
see what will happen; and certainly in this planning, foreshadow- 
ing, and preparation Sophocles has accomplished this task of 
arousing the interest in the first scene without giving any hint 
of the ultimate outcome of the play. Since the plan by which 


76 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Neoptolemus hopes to gain the arrows of Philoctetes has already 
been laid, their meeting in the first obligatory scene is full of 
suspense. Philoctetes tells Neoptolemus the story of the wrongs 
done him by the Greeks; and Neoptolemus unfolds his lying 
stratagem, which seems likely to succeed, as Philoctetes is willing 
to go with him. 

Then comes the follower of Odysseus disguised as a ship cap- 
tain bringing the news, at once both false and true, that Odys- 
seus has sailed for Lemnos to bring Philoctetes to Troy and that 
others have gone in search of Neoptolemus. In justifying this 
part of the play, which has been called episodic, Professor Jebb 
points out that this story quickens the impatience of Philoctetes 
to leave Lemnos, while it also strengthens his sympathy for the 
son of Achilles and supplies the motive for the transfer of the 
bow to Neoptolemus. | 

Philoctetes, knowing that he will fall ale after the paroxysm 
of pain that visits him, gives the bow and arrows to Neoptolemus, 
who swears to keep them safe. The suffering of Philoctetes is 
no sentimental bid for sympathy on the part of the audience but 
is dynamically dramatic. Neoptolemus has gained possession 
of the arrows, and apparently nothing remains for him but to 
hand them over to Odysseus; but the frankness of Philoctetes, 
his perfect trust in his new-found friend, the covenanted pledge 
cause a conflict in the heart of the son of Achilles. Neoptolemus 
can no longer bear the deceit he is practicing on this man and 
dramatically tells him the truth. Suddenly Odysseus enters as 
Neoptolemus is about to give back the bow and arrows. The 
action rises still higher as Philoctetes, pouring out his wild wrath 
upon the cold, calm Odysseus, attempts to throw himself into 
the sea but is held by the attendants. Odysseus bids Neopto- 
lemus follow him as he leaves for the ship, and the youth reluc- 
tantly obeys, but orders the sailors to stay and try to prevail 
upon the wretched Philoctetes to accompany them to Troy. 

The scene which follows between the hero and the chorus is 
no mere lament but a dramatic struggle in which Philoctetes 
refuses to follow them and begs for death. Thus does Sophocles 


SOPHOCLES : a 


turn the choral scenes into dramatic action. The plot quickly 
develops into a new phase as Neoptolemus returns with Odysseus 
dogging his footsteps; and another obligatory scene of clashing 
wills takes place when Neoptolemus, deaf to threats and en- 
treaties, avows his purpose of restoring the bow to its luckless 
owner. As Odysseus departs to summon the army to punish 
Neoptolemus, the latter calls forth Philoctetes and gives him 
back his arrows: Then occurs a coup de thédtre which would be 
merely melodramatic were the tragedy not so psychologically 
intense. Odysseus steps forth and Philoctetes aims a death- 
dealing arrow at him. The moment is a strong climax. Neopto- 
lemus holds Philoctetes’ arm, and Odysseus escapes death. The 
final obligatory scene begins as Neoptolemus entreats Philoctetes 
to come freely with him to Ilium, but although Philoctetes 
dramatically wavers for a moment and seems about to give in 
to the prayers of his new-found friend, he at last bids Neoptol- 
emus fulfill the promise to take him home and they set forth. 

Up to this point the treatment of the theme is masterful. The 
principal characters have been on the stage constantly; and the 
pendulum of the action has swung back and forth in dramatic 
suspense. The coups de théatre have produced moments of in- 
tense psychological interest without which the plot would be 
merely theatrical, not tragic and dramatic. The tragedy has 
taken place in the souls of the young heroes. But Sophocles was 
faced with a dilemma. The playwright could not alter the events 
of the fall of Troy by not having Philoctetes sail to lium. That 
would be doing too much violence even to pseudo-history. He 
solved the problem by introducing Heracles, as a deus ex machina, 
who gives the oracular decree that Philoctetes shall go to Troy. 
Philoctetes bows to the divine mandate. 

It has been said that Sophocles employed the deus ex machina 
in imitation of Euripides, who often called upon supernatural 
aid to untie his Gordian knots. The appearance of a god, 
whether logical or illogical, is thrilling and theatrically effective. 
So long as such a theme is given a mythological and supernatural 
setting, any audience will accept such a solution for that par- 


78 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


ticular play. We would not, however, feel satisfied with such a 
solution of the problem of A Doll’s House, of Galsworthy’s 
Loyalties, or even of Corneille’s Cid. Sophocles has made his 
conflict in this tragedy so entirely human and so purely psycho- 
logical that many of his modern admirers have sought to prove 
that the appearance of Heracles is a logical, psychological dé- 
nouement. Heracles has been explained as the personification of 
the conscience of Philoctetes. His appearance has been compared 
to the appearance of Christ in the Quo Vadis legend. Such 
explanations are brilliant, perhaps logical deductions; but they 
are deductions from reactions of modern minds, not from the 
Sophoclean text. 

The purely human problem of Philoctetes is not solved if the 
plot is stripped of its setting and analyzed abstractly. Aristoph- 
anes answers his problems more Clearly than do the tragic 
dramatists. Greek tragedies contain problems but they are not 
problem plays, in the modern sense, in which a dramatist aims 
to demonstrate a thesis. Philoctetes resembles a modern piéce a 
thése because finally ali the characters are in full possession of 
all facts, but Sophocles did not care to answer the problem by 
showing the reaction of the human mind to these facts. Never- 
theless, Philoctetes is the finest example in all Greek tragedy of 
the inter-reaction of events and character. In this respect it 
marks an advance in playwriting over Gdipus Rex in which the 
characters do not understand the situation until the very end. 
Philoctetes is Sophocles’ greatest achievement as a dramatist 
of the conflict in the souls of men, conscious of their duty to 
individuals and to society. 


CHAPTER III 
EURIPIDES 


URIPIDES (484-406 3.c.) was a contemporary of Sophocles 
and yet his principles of playwriting differ in so many ways 
from those of Sophocles and prepare so plainly for the future 
development of the art of constructing plays that he seems to 
mark a new period in the history of the drama. ‘The history 
of dramatic art shows a constant struggle between the spec- 
tacular and narrative elements on the one hand and the dramatic 
element on the other. Drama generally begins with the spec- 
tacular and narrative elements in the ascendancy. The dramatic 
element slowly emerges, and growing more and more important, 
finally becomes paramount, with a corresponding diminution of 
the spectacular and narrative interest. Then through various 
influences, the spectacular and narrative elements begin once 
more to overshadow dramatic action. The development is not a 
closed circle, but dramatic art in its decadence comes close to 
the point from which it started. First, poets write plays. Then 
the poets become dramatists who are willing to sacrifice the 
poetical and literary element to dramatic action. Finally the 
writer of plays becomes a poet who will not sacrifice literary 
excellence to dramatic excellence. The art of plot construction 
reached its highest point among the Greeks with Sophocles. 
Euripides, though a great artist, marks the beginning of a de- 
cline which culminates, so far as extant tragedies are concerned, 
with Seneca. Certain elements in Euripides’ principles of play- 
making coalesced with a few elements of Aristophanic comedy 
and produced that form of drama known as New Comedy. 
While Euripides makes certain innovations, his dramatic art 
shows reversions to a more primitive form. 
It is probable that Euripides was the last of the three play- 
79 


80 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


wrights to compose his tragedy on the subject of the vengeance 
wreaked on Clytemnestra by her children. Since Sophocles had 
followed the Aschylean version in its main outlines and had 
made his effects by expanding and developing scenes and situa- 
tions in the older play, it was incumbent upon Euripides to strike 
out on new lines in composing his Electra about 413 B.c. Both 
in this play and in his Helen, Euripides departs from the well- 
known versions of the myths; and in exercising his powers of 
invention he prepares for the wholly invented plots of later 
tragedies such as Agathon’s Flower. Naturally a time came 
when so many plays had been composed on the well-known 
myths that in order to produce any new effects the dramatist 
would have to rely upon his own imagination. Euripides, there- 
fore, changes the situation treated by A%schylus and Sophocles 
by supposing that Electra had been married by Aigisthus to a 
farmer who is poor but of noble birth. A®schylus had placed 
the scene of his play at the tomb of Agamemnon. Sophocles 
represents the action as taking place before the royal palace. 
Euripides sets his scene before the humble cottage of the Farmer. 
Perhaps in these settings is reflected respectively the religious 
atmosphere of A‘schylean tragedy, the heroic atmosphere of the 
Sophoclean superman and the more vivid humanity of the Euripi- 
dean men and women. The Euripidean setting needs little 
alteration to become the setting for New Comedy. While the 
Farmer is not a comic character, his station in life and the fact 
that he is married to a woman to whom he is husband in name 
only, leads one to think of the worthy citizens whom Menander 
will put upon the stage. The dividing line between comedy 
and tragedy is very faint and the amount of seriousness in a 
situation depends upon our point of view. The lofty and tragic 
atmosphere of Atschylus and Sophocles constantly gives way to 
pathos verging on sentimentality in Euripides. Because of this 
closer approach of the tragedies of Euripides to the sentimental 
plays of today, modern audiences generally prefer the tragedies 
of Euripides to the more austere tragedies of Sophocles. Aéschy- 
lus and Sophocles employ human suffering and situations which 


EURIPIDES 81 


arouse pity either as a background or a point of departure 
for their plot; but many scenes and situations are introduced by 
Euripides for no other purpose than to call into play the emotion 
of pity, and pity rather than sympathy. The idea of having 
Electra dressed in rags, doing menial work, married to a poverty- 
stricken man, and a little ashamed to invite strangers into her 
humble home is dangerously close to a bid for tears. The situa- 
tion may enhance the pathetic value of the play, but it detracts 
somewhat from the tragic value of the situation and is wholly 
unnecessary so far as the plot is concerned. If Euripides in- 
troduced this situation in order to motivate Electra’s longing 
for vengeance, he cheapened the tragic effect by shifting the 
attention for one moment from the one great motive which in- 
spired Electra: the murder of her father. The substitution of 
the pathetic for the tragic is as sure a sign of decadence as the 
similar procedure of substituting the horrible for the tragic, of 
which traces will be found in certain Euripidean plays. 

Electra opens with a speech of Auturgus in which he explains 
both the well-known facts of the situation and the new circum- 
stances of Electra’s marriage. The passage is entirely narrative, 
formal exposition. It is a prologue in the modern sense of the 
word, for the information is given directly to the audience, not 
to a character in the play. Electra issues from the cottage, and 
in a few words of dialogue between her and Auturgus, certain 
facts of the set prologue are reiterated. The purpose of the 
scene is to arouse pity for Electra, clad in rags and going about 
menial tasks, not to arouse tragic sympathy for a heroine. The 
tone of the scene is distinctly Euripidean. When the pair has 
withdrawn, Orestes and Pylades enter; then when Orestes has 
told how he has come to seek his sister and learn what has 
happened, they see Electra, whom they believe to be a slave, 
approaching. They draw aside with the intention of questioning 
her later. From her lamentation Orestes learns that she is 
Electra. The chorus then enters, and the lyric passage which 
follows does not advance the situation. Orestes comes forward; 
and, pretending that he has come as an emissary of her brother, 


82 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


he questions her at length but does not disclose his identity 
even after he has every reason to be satisfied with her attitude 
of mind. Euripides did not miss the opportunity of holding the 
suspense of the recognition scene as long as possible. He keeps 
Orestes silent in regard to his identity. Auturgus appears, invites 
the strangers to his house, and then goes to seek an old man, 
Agamemnon’s ancient guardian. When the old tutor arrives 
after a choral interlude, he recognizes Orestes by the scar above 
his eyebrow. This makes a very leisurely beginning of the real 
action; and the suspense of the recognition scene has been so 
prolonged as to lose some of its effect. There is much less action 
up to this point in the plot than in the Sophoclean version. 

The action now begins to unfold as plans are laid for venge- 
ance. Orestes is to seek out Agisthus who is performing a 
sacrifice. Electra is to entice Clytemnestra to her house on the 
pretence that a child has been born to her. After a choral ode 
which recalls the origin of the misfortunes of the house of 
Atreus, a messenger reports at length how Orestes slew A®gisthus. 
This is a reversion to more primitive technique which keeps 
both the protagonist and the antagonist off the stage. Indeed, 
the living A‘gisthus does not appear during the whole play, and 
Clytemnestra enters late in the development of the action. 
Orestes drags in the body of AXgisthus. Electra pours forth the 
vials of her wrath in triumph over the dead A%gisthus. As she 
incites the hesitating Orestes to slay his mother, the question of 
the matricide emerges in the rapid alternate lines. One is re- 
minded of the scene in which Lady Macbeth, the woman, bids 
the man to screw his courage to the sticking point. Thus Electra 
exhorts Orestes not to “sink unmanned to weak and timorous 
thoughts.” Such scenes are unquestionably dramatic; but, while 
Electra’s outburst over the body of AXgisthus leads up to this 
and arouses Orestes to action, the scene is highly sensational. 
Nor is it the only example of sensationalism in Euripides. 

The play reaches the climax when Clytemnestra comes in royal 
state, and the obligatory scene takes place between her and 


EURIPIDES 83 


Electra. In the A‘schylean version there is no scene between 
the mother and daughter. In Sophocles’ Electra the scene be- 
tween them comes rather early in the play, before the recognition 
scene. Euripides, however, is inclined to make a climax in which 
his characters discuss both sides of the question in a manner 
which resembles an oratorical contest, so enjoyed by Athenians 
in real life. This scene is more argumentative than the corre- 
sponding scene in Sophocles. The theatrical effectiveness of such 
scenes is undeniable, provided the question at issue is the vital 
problem of the play as in this case; but this type of situa- 
tion becomes merely rhetorical in the hands of Seneca, who 
strives to imitate Euripides but makes the mistake of discussing 
side issues or abstract questions which have nothing to do with 
the plot. 

Clytemnestra enters the cottage and a choral song serves to 
prolong the suspense, since we know that Orestes is waiting for 
her with drawn sword. Her death shriek resounds. Orestes and 
Pylades come forth, and Orestes describes the murder which has 
just occurred behind the scenes but which in A‘schylus’ play 
was on the stage. This is further evidence that dramatic action, 
having emerged from behind the scenes in the later plays of 
ZEschylus and in the tragedies of Sophocles, is now beginning to 
return whence it had issued. 

Aéschylus was able to answer the question of matricide in the 
third play of his trilogy, and Sophocles carefully avoided raising 
the question. Euripides, however, has brought up the problem; 
and he introduces the deus ex machina in the shape of Castor 
and Pollux, who throw the blame upon Apollo and bid Orestes 
marry Electra to Pylades and then go to Athens where he will 
find absolution. Such a procedure is as typical of Euripides as it 
is inartistic. It destroys the impression of the inevitable sequence 
of cause and effect in the development of the plot. The proposed 
marriage between Electra and Pylades, wholly unmotivated and 
coming suddenly at the end of the play, foreshadows the ending 
of later comedy by a marriage. The play, therefore, shows some 
of the forces at work which will cause the disintegration of 


84 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


dramatic technique in tragedy, but which will develop dramatic 
art along the lines of New Comedy. 

Euripides’ Medea (431 B.c.) is a fascinating and even baffling 
study of a strange woman, a barbarian enchantress, who murders 
her children. We are not concerned with the problem of the 
justice of her act nor with the question of the dramaturgic skill 
displayed in this tragedy. Medea remains one of the great femi- 
nine roles of all times; but it is our somewhat thankless task 
to point out certain elements in the play which were to become 
inartistic manifestations of a degenerate art of tragedy in the 
Renaissance. 

Jason owed everything to Medea; but Creon said to him: “Lo, 
I will give thee my daughter to wife, and thou shalt reign after 
me, if thou wilt put away thy wife Medea; but her and her two 
sons will I banish from the land.” Jason consented. The play 
opens at this point. Medea sends a poisoned robe and diadem 
to the bride who dies in agony after donning the fatal gifts. 
Creon also becomes a victim when he throws himself on his 
daughter’s body and is consumed by the fiery venom. Medea 
kills her own children and escapes in a chariot drawn by dragons 
to Athens where A®geus has promised her asylum. 

_ Vengeance as the motivating cause of an action appears in 
other Greek dramas such as the Eumenides and Sophocles’ 
Electra. Medea is so skilfully drawn that her deeds do not make 
a horrible impression on an audience. She arouses a baffling 
sympathy and admiration. The crime committed against her 
by Jason in his complacent stupidity seems almost to merit such 
punishment. It is not strange that Seneca and his imitators 
in the sixteenth century were impressed by this tragic réle; 
but it was unfortunate that they sought to emulate Euripides 
by producing plays in which a heinous villain becomes the hero 
whose every act is motivated by a desire for revenge often totally 
unjustifiable. Medea acts in part through motives of anger and 
vengeance ; but she remains a tragic heroine. Yet the “revenge 
play” and the phenomenon of the villain becoming the hero in 


EURIPIDES 8s 


Italian and Elizabethan drama are due to Medea primarily. 
Nothing is more dangerous to art than a masterpiece. 

Exposition of the facts necessary to make intelligible the un- 
folding of the plot had not been difficult so long as the point 
of attack in Greek drama remained close to the dénouement. 
With very little of the action taking place in the present and 
with the very few events and the quite uninvolved plots of the 
typical AXschylean play, the playwright had no difficulty in mak- 
ing the situation clear. He had to hark back to the past for 
his material. When the point of attack receded from the dénoue- 
ment and, as a result of the natural development of dramatic 
art, more events and greater complication of the plot appeared 
between the point of attack and the dénouement, exposition 
became difficult. This would not have been the case had the 
point of attack receded temporally, as it were, from the dénoue- 
ment far enough to include more events of the past in the play. 
In that case there would not have been so much of the past to 
explain in the exposition. Also, the trilogy on one subject, which 
had been employed by A‘schylus in order to include more of 
the underlying myth in the action of the drama, was discarded 
by the later dramatists, who, therefore, had to treat the whole 
story in one play. Although they did not represent the action 
of the past within the limits of their play, they had to un- 
veil the past. The three plays dealing with Electra’s ven- 
geance begin with the return of Orestes; but there is more 
action in the versions of Sophocles and of Euripides than there 
is in the Libation-Bearers. Although the same amount of expla- 
nation of the past is necessary in all three plays, Sophocles and 
Euripides have to deal much more with the present action, and 
hence they have to dispose of the exposition far more quickly 
than does Aéschylus. 

Euripides aimed to produce the tragic effect upon his audience, 
not so much by unveiling the past, as by representing a series 
of tragic or pathetic scenes of the present. For this reason it 
was necessary for Euripides to state immediately the problem of 
his plot and the antecedent events which lead up to its unfolding 


86 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


in order that he might have plenty of time to represent this 
series of pity-compelling situations. In Hecuba, for example, 
there is enough material that deals with the present for two 
7Eschylean tragedies. A troublesome problem of exposition had 
been created by the fact that the point of attack remained tem- 
porally in the same place but actually had receded from the 
dénouement, so far as the amount of action represented in the 
present is concerned. Euripides solved the problem by intro- 
ducing a formal prologue addressed to the audience, in which 
the facts necessary to understand the play are set forth. From 
Aristophanes’ time down to the present day, Euripides has been 
criticized for this procedure which has been branded as dull, 
inartistic and undramatic. 

In only two of the Euripidean plays is a prologue intdpenaatile 
to the full understanding of the action. In Jon the spectator 
must know from the beginning-the fact set forth in the prologue 
that Ion is the son of Creusa. In the Bacchantes the identity of 
Dionysus, the speaker of the opening monologue, must be made 
known immediately in order to create suspense in the highest 
degree. But the artistic value of a prologue is not to be judged 
by the question as to whether the ensuing action can be under- 
stood without it or not. As Aristophanes pointed out in the 
Frogs, these formal monologues are too full of genealogical 
details in which Euripides delighted exeessively. From the point 
of view of artistry and technical excellence, this formal opening 
is not to be compared with the opening of Agamemnon or 
(Edipus Rex. So far as the expository part of the prologue is 
concerned, it is doubtless somewhat inartistic. The events of the 
past, the present situation of the characters in the play, the 
names of the characters and the places of the action are set forth 
in a clear but summary fashion; but the function of the Euripi- 
dean prologue is not merely to supply necessary information 
to the audience. 

The difficulty besetting the dramatist in constructing the open- 
ing scenes of a play exists because he must acquaint the audi- 


a eee 


EURIPIDES 84 


ence with certain facts and because he must arouse interest in 
the plot by creating suspense as quickly as possible. At least 
he must put the spectators in such a frame of mind that they 
would not willingly leave the theatre until the play is over 
and curiosity is satisfied. Euripides does this by means of 
the prologue which always contains lines that arouse suspense, 
generally by foreshadowing events more or less truly, rarely 
by plainly foretelling. Sometimes these lines purposely mis- 
lead the spectator, or foreshadow events that do not take place, 
or arouse hope or fear, as the situation may demand, in order 
that the spectator may be held in doubt as to the final issue. 
They never forestall suspense. Only in Hippolytus does the 
prologue plainly foretell an event, the death of Phedra, with- 
out casting doubt as to whether it will really take place or 
not. In all the other prologues there is foreshadowing, not of 
what will take place, but of what may take place. 

In the prologue to Alcestis, Apollo informs the audience 
that Alcestis is dying and that Thanatos is coming to conduct 
her to the halls of Hades. Any normal spectator will immedi- 
ately infer that this is the end of Alcestis, if not of the play. 
Unless one takes into consideration pre-knowledge of the myth 
on the part of the audience—which is manifestly unjust in such 
a discussion—the possibility of the resurrection of Alcestis and 
of a happy outcome of the situation could not occur to anyone. 
In the next scene Apollo pleads with Thanatos to spare Alcestis ; 
but the messenger of death is obdurate. Finally, Apollo says 
that someone will come to take Alcestis from Thanatos. The ray 
of hope dawns; but does not the spectator believe that Alcestis 
must be rescued while she is still alive? Otherwise, if Apollo 
knows that she can be saved even after death, why does he plead 
with Thanatos? But Alcestis dies, and her resurrection comes 
as a surprising coup de thédtre. Euripides has indulged in false 
foreshadowing in the prologue in order to arouse suspense. 

The prologue to Jon deliberately misleads, when Hermes 
foreshadows the outcome. Hermes says: 


88 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


He [Apollo] shall give Xuthus, when he entereth, 

His own [Apollo’s] child, saying to him, “Lo, thy son,” 
That the lad, coming home, made known may be 

Unto Creusa, and Loxias’ deed abide 

Unknown .. 


It is true that Apollo bestows Ion upon Xuthus as if Xuthus 
were the father of Ion, as is foretold in the prologue; but Creusa 
does not for this reason accept Jon as her son. Indeed, she 
arouses great suspense by planning to slay this supposed son 
of Xuthus; and the manner in which she is saved from this 
terrible act is wholly surprising. In order to bring about the 
recognition between the mother and the son, Loxias’ deed has to 
be made known in spite of the fact that Hermes foretold that 
the amour between Creusa and Apollo would remain secret. 
This is more than false foreshadowing. It is false foretelling. 
At the end of the play Athena says that the divine seer meant 
to keep this secret until the truth could be proclaimed at Athens; 
but evidently the intention of a god must give way to the desire 
of the playwright to arouse suspense and surprise. 

Euripides’ skill in foreshadowing appears to excellent ad- 
vantage in the formal prologue to the Mad Heracles. Amphitryon 
tells us that Heracles does not return from the house of Pluto, 
that the children have no hope of safety save to cling to the 
altar of Zeus, since Lycus aims to slay the children, their mother, 
and even Amphitryon himself. Thus suspense is immediately 
aroused. One gains the impression that almost all hope is gone. 
Since Heracles is in the realm of the dead, one hardly expects 
him to return. Therefore, when he does appear wholly unex- 
pectedly just at the moment when he alone can save the children, 
the suspense caused by the knowledge that Lycus seeks to slay 
them is ended by a dramatic coup de thédtre. Again Euripides 
has employed false foreshadowing, as the event foreshadowed in 
the prologue does not take place. Had the playwright foretold 
or even foreshadowed the arrival of Heracles, the suspense and 
surprise would have been immeasurably reduced. On the other 


EURIPIDES 89 


hand, the speech of Iris, which serves in effect as a prologue 
to the second part of the tragedy, correctly foretells the murder 
of the children by Heracles. If we were not given to believe that 
the children would be slain by him, the action of the play at 
this point would wander on in an aimless manner. There would 
be no suspense but only surprise; and when one of these ele- 
ments must be sacrificed to the other, it is almost always, and 
certainly in this case, surprise which must be given up even 
though suspense is reduced to fear. 

The foreshadowing and preparation were not confined by 
Euripides to the prologue; but, like AXschylus and Sophocles, 
he was careful to introduce scenes which look towards the ensuing 
development of the action in such a way as to keep the interest 
of the spectator alive. Thus the chorus in Hippolytus fore- 
shadows Phedra’s state of mind and prepares for her entrance 
in a very dramatic manner. The foreshadowing dream, which 
was used effectively by A‘schylus and was to become one of the 
most frequently employed means of foreshadowing in modern 
imitations of classic tragedy, is used by Euripides. The loss of 
Hecuba’s children, foretold in the prologue of Hecuba, is fore- 
shadowed later in a cryptic dream. Oracles and the prophecy 
of seers, the other canonical means of foreshadowing in classical 
tragedy, also appear. In the Phanician Women, Tiresias fore- 
tells the death of the two brothers; and in Jon, Trophonius is 
reported as having said in a manner to arouse curiosity that 
neither Xuthus nor Creusa shall return from the temple of 
Apollo destitute of children. There was always enough doubt of 
veracity of dreams, oracles, and prophecies to supply the mingled 
hope and fear necessary to arouse suspense. 

Euripides also paves the way for much of his action by having 
his principal characters lay plans for their future deeds. Thus 
Dionysus in the Bacchantes tells how he is sending Pentheus to 
death at his mother’s hands. Medea plans to slay her children 
and Jason’s wife. Helen and Menelaus in Helen, and Iphigenia 
and Orestes in the /phigenia in Tauris, tell how they will attempt 
to escape. Helen says that one of two things is certain: either 


90 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Menelaus and she will escape or die. Doubt is created; and, 
throughout the rest of this play with a happy ending, Euripides 
has carefully stressed the note of fear. The scene prepares for 
the dénouement but does not assure a happy outcome. This 
foreshadows but by no means forestalls the action as many critics 
have believed. The difficulty and the danger attendant upon 
the successful accomplishment of these plans are insisted upon 
to such an extent that the audience cannot be sure that the plans 
will be consummated. 

An audience always wants to know, in a more or less vague 
way, what the characters intend to do. The dramatist must 
simply avoid giving the impression during the play that the 
whole action is cut-and-dried, that the plot will develop in the 
way it unfolds and in no other. When the play is ended, the 
development of the action must seem to have been inevitable. 

It is this impression of inevitableness which the tragedies of 
Euripides fail to produce. One does not feel that the incidents 
in his plays are the necessary result of a preceding cause. He 
does not take a situation and show what events arise from it 
in necessary sequence. His aim is rather to take a situation 
and show what pathetic events arise from it as in the Trojan 
Women; or he may take a character such as Hecuba and repre- 
sent the different pitiable situations in which she finds herself. 
The development of his plot is more likely to be a gradation 
of increasingly pathetic episodes rather than the careful working 
out of a problem. For this reason many of his plots, such as 
those of the Trojan Women, Hecuba, Andromache, the Children 
of Heracles, lack the unity of necessary sequence of events. The 
unity may consist only of a fictitious unity furnished by the 
fact that the same character undergoes these pathetic emotions, 
as in Hecuba or the Trojan Women. He may even introduce a 
second set of characters not so interesting as the first, as in the 
Children of Heracles. His aim is to portray as many theatrical 
and emotional scenes as possible; and, in order to do so, he is 
willing to construct his plot so loosely that the episodes are 
connected by a very tenuous thread. The interest in the un- 


EURIPIDES QI 


folding of the plot is sometimes overshadowed by emotional 
effects arising from the situation. 

This is not always the case, however, for there is a very strong 
plot interest in Jon and in the romantic Helen. But even in 
these plays and in Orestes, Euripides sacrifices psychology and 
true depiction of character to theatrical effects. “Thus in Jon,” 
as Mr. Haigh points out, “the character of Creusa, which at first 
arouses our sympathy, is sacrificed for the sake of a powerful 
situation; and her atrocious resolve to murder Ion, though it 
leads to interesting complications, lowers her in the eyes of the 
spectator. In Orestes, in the same way, the brutal design on 
Helen, while giving a new direction to the plot extinguishes our 
compassion for the sufferings of the brother and sister.” 

Orestes is an example of tragedy turned into melodrama which 
is more theatric than tragic. In the prologue, Electra stands by 
the bedside of the feverish Orestes and explains that they have 
been deserted by their friends and are awaiting probably a death 
sentence as matricides. The one vague hope lies in the arrival of 
Menelaus for whom she watches. Helen, not daring to venture 
among the fathers whose sons died at Troy, sends her daughter 
to the tomb of Clytemnestra with propitiatory offerings. The 
Argive maidens enter; and, in a realistic scene which must have 
been effective on the stage, Orestes tosses on his bed and awakes, 
sick in mind and body, a prey to visions of the avenging Furies, 
while Electra tries to quiet him. The lines are practically stage 
directions and prove how vividly Euripides must have imagined 
the action as he wrote. Menelaus arrives; and, as Orestes ap- 
peals to him, Tyndarus, the father of Clytemnestra, enters and 
vows vengeance. Orestes knows that Menelaus is deserting him 
in spite of his dissembling promise to try to soften Tyndarus 
and to ask the Greeks to use their power with gentleness. Even 
hope forsakes him, but Pylades urges him to try one more 
chance: to appear before the Greeks and plead his cause. They 
go to the trial and a messenger soon brings the dire news to 
Electra that she and her brother are condemned to commit 
suicide. In a scene portraying intense human suffering, Electra 


92 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


begs Orestes to slay her; and Pylades, faithful friend, vows to 
share their suffering. But the desire comes to them for venge- 
ance, and they swear to punish Menelaus by killing Helen before 
they die. If Menelaus in turn attempts revenge, they plan to 
hold the sword over Hermione and to threaten to slay her. They 
believe they have carried out their brutal design on Helen. The 
play sinks from the lofty Greek plane of tragedy to a Senecan 
play on revenge and finally to melodrama. They lay hold of 
Hermione as she returns from the tomb, and, holding a sword 
at her breast, threaten to plunge it home as Menelaus appears. 
Nor can this present tangle be straightened out without a Euripi- 
dean god from the machine to give the play a happy ending. 
Apollo bids Menelaus marry another wife, but tells how he has 
actually saved Helen from death. Orestes is to be acquitted at 
Athens. Pylades is to marry Electra and—crowning touch— 
Menelaus bestows Hermione on Orestes as his bride. Thus ends 
the play with the marriages of comedy! There can be no doubt 
that Euripides aimed at variety and attained his goal. 

No one play of Euripides equals A‘schylus’ Agamemnon or 
Sophocles’ Gidipus Rex in technical excellence, but neither of 
the other playwrights employs such a wide range of effects as 
does Euripides. Because he was fully aware that a series of 
pathetic scenes is emotionally effective on the stage, he cared 
less for the well-constructed plot. Thus the plot of the Trojan 
Women arouses little interest ; but after seeing the play one never 
forgets the heart-rending scenes in which the child Astyanax is 
torn from his mother and is brought back dead to the grief- 
stricken woman. 

The plot of the Suppliants is very slight, but the play is typical 
of one method of Euripides. It begins with a band of suppliants 
kneeling about an altar. There is a debate on forms of govern- 
ment; pathetic lamentation; a theatrical episode, as Evadne 
throws herself from a cliff; a description of a battle; glorifica- 
tion of Athens; a deus ex machina foretelling the future. The 
causal sequence of events hardly exists. The play is a succession 
of events following an incident of the past. . 


EURIPIDES 93 


On the other hand, Euripides shows in Jon how successfully 
he can handle a complex plot without breaking the unity of 
action. Medea, Iphigenia in Aulis and the Bacchantes are 
excellent evidence that he could observe as strict a unity of 
action as did Sophocles, and could guide his plot to one great 
climax when he wished, or could arrive at two climaxes, as in 
Mad Heracles and Andromache. 

As a rule, however, Euripidean technique does not aim to 
produce what is known as the well-made play. It is for this 
reason that Aristotle says Euripides was not always happy in 
the conduct of his plots. Looking back on his work as a whole, 
one is impressed by the great variety of single effective scenes. 
Greek tragedy becomes more human, more realistic with Euripi- 
des who, as Aristotle says, paints men as they are. Realistic 
details, found sparingly in Sophoclean tragedy, abound in 
Euripides. He introduced domestic affairs into tragedy as 
Aristophanes has him say in the Frogs. Thus he shows us 
Electra drawing water; Clytemnestra stepping from her chariot ; 
Ion sweeping the steps of the temple. The chorus in Hippolytus 
has learned of Phzdra’s illness from a friend who has been 
washing clothes. Orestes tosses on his bed of fever in a scene 
which a modern realist might envy. In addition to the pathetic 
scenes already mentioned, there is Alcestis dying on the stage 
and taking leave of her husband and her child. In the Suppliants 
there is the episode of Menceceus, who throws himself from the 
battlements in order that the prophecy of Tiresias may be ful- 
filled; and in the Children of Heracles, Macaria goes forth to 
death voluntarily to save her brothers and sisters. These episodes 
are introduced for the sake of pathos. Neither one of them 
alters the development of the action. Indeed, we lose sight of 
Macaria entirely after her exit. Euripides. often employs chil- 
dren in his plays to arouse the softer human emotions, while 
ZEschylus seems not to have brought them on the stage at all, 
and Sophocles only in Ajax and in Hdipus Rex. 

There are such striking scenes as Hecuba enticing Polymestor 
within the tent in order to put out his eyes; Menelaus enticing 


04 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Andromache from her refuge by telling her she must die to save 
her son and then seizing her; Orestes with his sword at the 
breast of Hermione threatening to slay her before the eyes of 
her father; Orestes confronted with the father of Clytemnestra ; 
Medea taking leave of her children before she slays them; Agave 
discovering the body of her son slain by her own hands; Hecuba, 
thinking to see the body of her daughter, beholding the body of 
her son, a scene which reminds one of Sophocles’ A‘gisthus, who, 
thinking to uncover the body of Orestes, discovers the body of 
Clytemnestra. One remembers vividly such theatrical effects as 
Medea wailing within the palace; Medea in her car defying her 
husband; the suicide of Evadne; the earthquake and lightning 
in the Bacchantes ; the appearance of Iris and Lyssa on the roof 
of the palace in the Mad Heracles; Alcestis veiled and silent 
brought in by Heracles and suddenly disclosed to her husband 
who believes she is dead. There is the stage picture of Theseus 
brandishing over the body of Phedra the incriminating tablets and 
falsely accusing Hippolytus of having made love to her; there 
is the suppressed letter which warns Clytemnestra not to bring ~ 
Iphigenia to the camp at Aulis; there is the sudden and unex- 
pected arrival of Heracles in time to save his children. All 
these devices make plots; but they are too palpable devices and 
give a touch of theatricalism. Tragedy begins to be a series of 
incidents often depending on chance instead of being the in- 
exorable and inevitable working out of a problem. The conduct 
of the plot seems often to be arbitrary, fortuitous, for theatrical 
not tragic effect. 

The principal characters are on the stage most of the time in 
the tragedies of Euripides. Few obligatory scenes are omitted. 
Since. Euripides’ aim was to put pathetic situations on the stage, 
he had to place the characters undergoing the emotion before 
the eyes of the spectators. Yet it is curious that in Medea 
Jason’s bride does not appear on the stage although she is one 
of the principal characters in the story and meets her death 
during the play. In the extant version of Hippolytus, Pheedra 
and Hippolytus, although they appear on the stage together, 


EURIPIDES 95 


never address each other. It is probable that in the first version 
of the tragedy, Phedra confessed her love to Hippolytus, but 
that Euripides changed the scene because it shocked the Attic 
sense of propriety. Euripides, however, handles the situation in 
his extant play with finesse and overcomes the limitations placed 
upon him by the psychology of the Attic audience. He has the 
nurse begin to tell Hippolytus of Phzedra’s love off the stage, 
but within Phedra’s hearing. Then Hippolytus and the nurse 
enter and the interview is continued. In this way the emotions 
of Phedra are represented almost as powerfully as if she had 
confessed her passion to her step-son. 

Although obligatory scenes are portrayed upon the stage by 
principal characters as a rule, the messenger overshadows the 
principals in the Phanician Women. The two brothers, Polynices 
and Eteocles, appear but once; and the whole play is a succession 
of pathetic scenes in which the principal characters are bewailing 
instead of acting. At the same time that Euripides was placing 
theatrical scenes and coups de thédtre on the stage and was 
appealing to the eye as well as to the ear, he actually began to 
increase the oratorical element in tragedy and to restore to the 
role of the messenger the importance it possessed in earlier 
plays. The Greeks loved a debate and Euripides often appeals 
to this desire for oratorical effect even though he may have to 
hold up the action of the play to do so. Theseus and the Herald 
debate on forms of government in the Suppliants. In Orestes 
there is an oratorical contest on the question of the love of a 
son for his father and mother. The obligatory scene in Medea 
between Jason and Medea in which Jason defends, like a lawyer, 
his marriage with Creon’s daughter, and the scene in Hippolytus 
between Theseus and Hippolytus show only too plainly oratorical 
effects encroaching upon the drama. Euripides divides his dia- 
logue symmetrically now into prolonged harangues and then into 
rapid replies in which maxim is answer to maxim. Although he 
derides the length of the A‘schylean description of the seven 
chiefs before Thebes, he indulges in long narrative passages full 
of minute description of details hardly necessary to the action. 


96 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Especially is this true of his description of battles. The Greek 
audience enjoyed rhetorical effects and stylistic flowers. The 
ubiquity of rhetoricians and orators in real life is ample evidence 
of Athenian taste for rhetorical argumentation and haranguing. 
Having freed itself of such undramatic elements, tragedy began 
to follow a road which was to reach the undramatic goal of 
Seneca. Tragedy was to become rhetorical poetry. 

As Euripides is noted for opening his plays with formal pro- 
logues, so he differs from A‘schylus and Sophocles in his frequent 
use of a god from the machine in order to end his plays. Also, 
just as he has been criticized adversely by both ancients and 
moderns for employing the formal prologue, so he has often been 
called to account by critics, from Plato and Antiphanes down 
to the present writers on Greek tragedy, for introducing a deus 
ex machina at the end of so many Of his plays. Again it is 
difficult to discover why Euripides chose this manner of ending 
plays, for only two or three of his plots actually need divine 
intervention to cut the Gordian knot. In Orestes, Euripides has 
so entangled his principal characters that there is no chance of 
extricating them from the situation without at least divine inter- 
vention if not inartistic intervention. Indeed, Apollo’s announce- 
ment of the fact that he has saved Helen, whom Orestes and 
Electra believe to have killed, shows that Euripides has been 
indulging in legerdemain worthy of a Scribe. He has excited 
the emotions of the audience over an event that he later admits 
did not take place. There is no justification for the supposed 
murder of Helen or the scene in which Orestes threatens to kill 
Hermione. These episodes are introduced for theatrical pur-. 
poses and, as a result, the happy ending of the play is entirely 
forced. In Hippolytus, Artemis appears in order to prove the 
innocence of Hippolytus, and in the first version of Iphigenia in 
Aulis, Artemis came to Clytemnestra and told her of the substi- 
tution of a deer for Iphigenia on the sacrificial altar. 

Thus Euripides must have had other motives for introducing 
the god from the machine than the necessity of ending the play. 
The entrance was an effective spectacle. Also, it gave an oppor- 


EURIPIDES 07 


tunity to foretell events of the future. In this way, together 
with the recital of events of the past which took place in the 
prologue, Euripides was able to include in one play much of the 
story which formerly constituted the basis of the trilogy. 
Euripides seems to have invented the episode of the adverse 
wind in /phigenia in Tauris, an event which certainly is not in 
causal sequence with the rest of the plot, merely to introduce a 
god from the machine. As in the case of the prologue, Euripides 
did not introduce the god from the machine out of sheer inepti- 
tude as a dramatist. Both procedures were a part of the practice 
of a very clever, sophisticated dramatist who, as Aristophanes 
says in the Frogs, “contrived all things cunningly,” who even in 
his faults gives evidence that he knew what his public wanted 
and gave it to them in many varied forms. 

The Greek chorus, which had originally consisted of fifty, was 
reduced in number to fifteen. The reduction may have been 
gradual; or it is possible that about 487 B.c. the original unit of 
fifty was transformed into four choruses of twelve, one group 
being assigned to each play of the tetralogy. Sophocles and 
Euripides both employed choruses of fifteen. The average choral 
part in the tragedies of A‘schylus is about two-fifths of the whole 
play. In Sophoclean and Euripidean tragedy it averages only 
one-fifth of the whole. The number and length of conversations 
between the individual characters and the chorus were reduced 
by Euripides. 

Commenting upon the function of the chorus, Aristotle says: 
“The chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors (char- 
acters) ; it should be an integral part of the whole and take a 
share in the action, that which it has in Sophocles rather than in 
Euripides.” Jn early tragedy the chorus had played the whole 
tragedy. Then scenes of dialogue had been interspersed in the 
choral performance. Such is the impression left by A‘schylus’ 
Suppliants. In his later plays the individual characters begin to 
overshadow the chorus so far as the plot is concerned. The 
Sophoclean chorus also has a share in the action. His chorus 
began to assume also a function described as that of the “ideal 


98 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


spectator.” It expressed in words the thoughts and emotions 
of the real audience. This function was inherent in the original 
chorus of early tragedy; but it developed clearly when the inter- — 
est of the audience was shifted from the choral réle to the 
role of the individual. The chorus then changed from subjective 
sufferers into more objective observers. But they were not 
passive ideal spectators. Their songs guided the real audience in 
its emotions and subconscious thoughts much as an orchestral 
accompaniment guides the audience at a Wagnerian opera. Their 
dancing was expressionistic as scenery and plastic color are 
expressionistic in the modern theatre. They were “an integral 
part of the whole,” even though in certain tragedies of Euripides 
they did not ‘take a share in the action” throughout the play. 

The chorus plays the role of a character in certain episodes of 
Euripides’ tragedies. It informs Hecuba of the decision of the 
Greeks to sacrifice her daughter Polyxena which constitutes the 
initial cause of the plot of Hecuba. Later in the action, it 
arouses suspense during the scene in which Hecuba is putting 
out Polymestor’s eyes within the tent and hence behind the 
scenes. The chorus in Jon informs Creusa that Xuthus has 
apparently found his son, although they have been threatened 
with death if they report this supposed fact. This information 
changes the whole course of the action, for Creusa resolves to 
slay Ion who is really her own child. In the Suppliants, the 
chorus is practically the heroine of the play as it is in the 
Suppliants of AEschylus, although the later dramatist has intro- 
duced AXthra as the spokeswoman for the chorus. The chorus 
is indispensable in the Bacchantes. | 

In other Euripidean dramas, such as Iphigenia in Aulis and 
Electra, the choral réle is not vital to the plot. The chorus in 
the Phanician Women, although it imparts certain information 
to Creon, occupies the pauses in the action and does not enter 
into the plot as does A‘schylus’ chorus in the Seven Against 
Thebes. Such choral odes as that which glorifies Athens in 
Medea, the recital of the labors of Heracles in the Mad Heracles, 
the description of the shield of Achilles in Electra have a subtle 


EURIPIDES 99 


but very tenuous connection with the plot. There is that 
tendency toward irrelevancy which will culminate in the de- 
velopment of the ode described by Aristotle when he says: “With 
the later poets, however, the songs in a play of theirs have no 
more to do with the plot of that than of any other tragedy. 
Hence it is that they are now singing intercalary pieces, a prac- 
tice first introduced by Agathon.” 

But Euripides did not reach this point in the decadence of 
the choral element of tragedy. No matter how tenuous the 
connection of this element with the plot may have been, his 
chorus and their songs are an integral part of the whole drama. 
They cannot be transferred from one play to another without 
destroying the unity of impression. The audience may not have 
been fully conscious of the real meaning of certain odes but 
the songs expressed the spirit of the play. Like an orchestral 
interlude, which weaves together the motifs of a modern opera, 
they held the audience within the spiritual domain of the tragedy. 

If standards of realism are applied, the Euripidean chorus is 
found at times to be an obtrusive character in the scene. It is 
hard to explain why the chorus of women would allow Hippolytus 
to be punished for a crime of which he was innocent, as they knew. 
In [phigenia in Tauris, the chorus overhear Orestes and Pylades 
carry on their generous conflict as to which of them is to deliver 
the letter of Iphigenia; and, unless the chorus were very in- 
attentive, they learned then and there the identity of Orestes 
which they are supposed to discover later with Iphigenia. Also, 
Iphigenia lays the plan to steal the image of Artemis within 
hearing of these guardians of the temple. Such episodes are 
illogical, if judged from the point of view of a realist; but stand- 
ards of realism should not be invoked. To the Greek audience 
the chorus could become a pure abstraction. It could be theoreti- 
cally as non-existent as the real spectators. Probably only 
modern critics feel that such procedures are illogical and unreal. 
Either Euripides was a childish bungler at such moments or 
else theatrical. conventions removed the chorus from the domain 
of the action, although it was present on the stage. The Euripi- 


100 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


dean chorus was still an essential part of Greek drama, not 
merely a poetical embellishment, although it could cease to be a 
character in the plot. It furnished legitimate psychological spec- 
tacle and, at times, action. It guided the emotional mood of the 
audience. 

Greek tragedy was still an harmonious synthesis of all the 
arts. Aristotle recognized the synthetic quality of drama. He 
considered plot and character the most important, music and 
spectacle the least important of the elements of the synthesis. 
His theory was prophetic of the development of dramatic art. 
Plot and character became the chief aim of playwrights. Music 
disappeared from drama and spectacle was regarded as a ques- 
tionable means of making an impression. Not until centuries 
passed was the synthetic quality of dramatic art to be recog- 
nized once more. Not until the twentieth century have the 
potentialities attainable by synthesis been realized and developed 
in dramatic art. In the space of one hundred years, the Greeks 
had created and brought tofull bloom an art from which all the 
beauty of the modern theatre is derived. Every great play, 
serious or comic, every valid theory of dramatic art owes its 
existence directly or indirectly to Greek tragedy. Remove 
Euripides, and the modern theatre ceases to exist. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK COMEDY. 
ARISTOPHANES. MENANDER 


OTH tragedy and comedy were originally joyous and 

ludicrous. Tragedy became serious. Comedy remained 
humorous. The only difference between these two forms of 
drama which has survived throughout the ages is precisely this 
difference in tone which did not exist originally. All other differ- 
ences insisted upon in certain periods, such as the social status 
of the characters and the dénouement, have disappeared. Trag- 
edy may end happily. Comedy must end happily, otherwise it 
would become serious. Both forms may deal with the same 
problems and situations of human life. Either form may depict 
men as better or worse than they are in real life, although Aris- 
totle held that tragedy represented them as better, and comedy, 
as worse. Even the difference in tone is often so faint in modern 
drama that the terms tragedy and comedy are of dubious value 
as descriptive of a play. One can only be sure that a play is a 
play. 

In the fifth century in Greece, however, many technical differ- 
ences existed between tragedy and comedy, in addition to that 
of tone. In tragedy, the point of attack is closer to the dénoue- 
ment than in comedy. There is much more narration of past 
events and of events behind the scenes in tragedy. The role of 
the messenger, so important in tragedy, occurs in comedy only 
as a burlesque of tragedy. Every event of any importance is 
represented on the comic stage with the exception of the canon- 
ical feast, which may be a survival of an act of worship, hidden 
from all but the initiate, in the ritual from which comedy devel- 
oped. In this respect comedy is the more normal form of dra- 
matic art which by its very nature represents, not narrates an 

Ior 


102 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


action. Scenes of violence and death are generally banished from 
view in tragedy, while in comedy scenes of violence are portrayed 
on the stage. The agon or contest in comedy is enacted on the 
stage and is carried on by the individual hero and villain; but 
in certain tragedies the principal agon occurs behind the scenes, 
or, if it is on the stage, takes place between an individual and the 
chorus. In early A‘schylean tragedy, both hero and villain are 
relatively unimportant figures, seldom issuing from behind the 
scenes, and the réle of the villain never became extremely im- 
portant. In comedy, both these parts attained a fuller develop- 
ment and the chorus became a relatively less important factor 
in the play. There is a stricter unity of action and the plot is 
more important in tragedy than in comedy. Tragedy is so retro- 
spective that one can almost say it is in the past tense, while 
comedy is prospective and is in the present and future tense. 
Both forms are similar in that they employ a chorus. But the 
comic chorus is very partisan. At the beginning of the agon it 
is more or less violently on the side of one of the adversaries; 
or it may be divided against itself in two hostile groups; but it 
always ends on the victorious side. In only one tragedy 
(Eumenides) does the tragic chorus take sides against the hero; 
and it never changes its allegiance and never divides into hostile 
half-choruses. We follow the action of tragedy through the eyes 
and the emotions of the chorus; but in comedy we follow the 
action through the hero rather than through the reactions of a 
possibly hostile chorus. 

This wide divergence in tone and construction existed when 
the history of tragedy and comedy actually begins for us and 
when both forms were being presented in the same theatre dur- 
ing the same festivals in honor of Dionysus. Aristophanic com- 
edy was influenced in certain respects by contemporary tragedy ; 
and the construction of comedy, as it developed into New Com- 
edy, became more and more similar to the technique of Euripi- 
dean tragedy until the two forms became practically identical 
except in tone. Even that difference was less marked as New 
Comedy became less boisterously humorous and tragedy, as in 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK COMEDY 103 


Helen and Alcestis, became less solemn and began to contain 
humorous scenes, or, at least, episodes lacking in tragic dignity. 
In the last part of the Symposium, Socrates was insisting to 
Aristophanes and Agathon “that the genius of comedy was the 
same as that of tragedy and that the writer of tragedy ought to 
be a writer of comedy also.” The idea was doubtless novel but 
is perfectly sound. The passage is evidence that at least one 
Greek had discovered that these two forms of art are not so dis- 
similar as they had seemed. Unfortunately, we do not know 
surely the opinion of Aristophanes and Agathon even as reported 
by Plato. They were “compelled to assent, being sleepy, and not 
quite understanding his meaning.” 

Since tragedy and comedy coalesced when brought into con- 

tact, since they were both joyous in tone at:the beginning, since 
they both owed their origin to rituals of the cult of Dionysus, 
the cause for the wide divergence in tone and construction, rela- 
tively temporary though it was, must lie in the influence of the 
ritual in honor of the hero on primitive tragedy. Primitive 
comedy developed independently. 

According to Aristotle, comedy had its origin in the comus 
which was a combination of religious hymn, scurrilous jesting, 
and mockery. It was evidently a part of a ritual performed to 
insure fertility. The Acharnians contains a scene in which 
Diczopolis, his family and slaves are represented as. celebrating 
a part of this Dionysiac rite while Diczopolis intones the song. 

The ritual was not commemorative of past events. It dealt 
with the present and was performed in order to insure fertility 
in the future. It was essentially an agon or contest between the 
good and evil, Summer against Winter, Light against Darkness. 
Good triumphed over evil in the end. Since comedy sprang 
from such a ritual, it is joyous with a happy ending, the action 
is before the eyes of the spectators, there is no retrospection or 
unveiling of the past, and a physical or verbal contest, such as 
the long debate between Cleon and the sausage-seller in the 
Knights, is an important element in the play. There are indi- 
vidual agonists and antagonists, and the chorus of twenty-four 


104 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


may be divided into hostile semi-choruses of twelve. Perhaps 
in the agon in the ritual, both the agonist and antagonist, repre- 
senting respectively the forces of good and evil, were originally 
leaders of a half-chorus. Thus the original ritualistic form may 
be preserved in Lysistrata, in which the chorus is divided into 
two hostile groups. Also in the Acharnians, Diceopolis desires 
to make peace with Sparta. He harangues the hostile chorus 
and wins half of them to his views. The other half-chorus calls 
for Lamachus. Diczopolis and Lamachus indulge in a physical 
and verbal agon in which Lamachus is worsted. The whole 
chorus decides that Diczopolis “prevails with his arguments.” 

‘Thus, since in the ritual underlying comedy there was a well- 
defined agon, the chorus would naturally be divided, some sid- 
ing with the hero,-some siding with the villain. In the end, 
since there must be a joyful outcome, the whole chorus would 
be on the side of the victor—the new god. On the other hand, 
since there was no enacted agon in the worship of the dead 
hero, the whole tragic chorus would be immutably in sympathy 
with the hero as soon as this ritual became the dominating factor 
in tragic dramas. Indeed, before the hero was portrayed in 
tragedy on the stage, the chorus was what is technically known 
as the sympathetic character. There would be no possibility 
for divided allegiance in such circumstances. 

This situation explains the relative unimportance of the chorus 
and the relative importance of the réles of hero and villain in 
comedy in comparison with early tragedy. These two roles in 
comedy probably developed from the leaders of hostile semi- 
choruses in the ritual. The rdle of the messenger, indispensable 
in tragedy, was totally unnecessary in the comic ritual. From 
the earliest times, the interest of the worshipper or the spectator 
must have been centred on the individual agonist and antago- 
nist, instead of on those merely beholding the struggle. In the 
ritual in honor of the dead hero, the hero was present in spirit. 
In the ritual underlying comedy, the hero and villain were pres- 
ent in flesh and blood. ? 

The point of attack in the ritualistic tragic drama was neces- 


eee Pe ee ere oe eS 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK COMEDY * 105 


sarily close to the dénouement; and even in highly developed 
tragedy, it remained late in the story. The most important 
result of this selection of the opening scene is what Aristotle 
calls the unity of action. Whatever may be narrated in a play 
thus constructed, little can be enacted that is episodic. In the 
comic ritual, the point of attack was at the beginning of the 
story, because the ritual was not retrospective. It was a 
magic rite performed in the present. Hence the point of attack 
in comedy is at the beginning of the story. 

The compression of the action caused by placing the point 
of attack close to the dénouement in serious drama, made it 
natural for the action of tragedy to run its course during “one 
revolution of the sun.” The hero had but little time to live 
even when he had been resurrected. The element of time in com- 
edy is indefinite and unimportant because the question of lapse 
of time did not enter into the magic rites. 

The original scene of the worship of the dead hero was the 
tomb. Because there are few events in the last hours of a hero’s 
life, they are likely to happen in one place. Thus the single 
scene is natural in Greek tragedy and changes of scene are rare 
even in the highly developed form. The ease with which the 
scene shifts in such comedies as the Frogs and the Acharnians 
must be due to the indefiniteness and unimportance of the locality 
of the ritual underlying comedy. 

The continuous presence of the chorus in tragedy has been 
adduced as the reason for the unity of time and the unity of 
place. To shift them from one place to another and to think of 
them as remaining for a long time without food or slumber, it 
is said, would be an absurdity. This theory originated among 
Renaissance scholars and is held by many modern critics. It is 
the result of applying standards of realism totally foreign to 
the spirit of Greek tragedy. If the continuous presence of the 
chorus had this effect on tragedy, it would have had a similar 
effect on comedy. Such is not the case. Comedy was freer in 
this respect than tragedy because of different circumstances in 


106 * THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


their early development. Also, to ascribe the freedom of comedy 
to the fact that the Greeks did not take Aristophanic comedy 
seriously is merely to beg the question. 

A curious element of Aristophanic comedy is the parabasis, 
during which the chorus and the leader lay aside temporarily 
their assumed character and address the audience directly. Pro- 
fessor Navarre has suggested that the parabasis is a survival 
of a practice of the maskers of the primitive comus who momen- 
tarily removed their disguise in order to disclose their real iden- 
tity to their fellow townspeople in a diverting manner. At the 
same time the chief of the troup would profit by the moment 
to praise the spectacle, and to give his opinion on public affairs, 
and to lampoon his noted fellow citizens. There was naturally 
a parodus, or noisy entrance of the chorus, and an exodus, a 
kind of final triumphant ballet of the revelers, of which examples 
are found in Aristophanic: comedy. The structural elements 
which sprang from the comus as it was performed in Attica are, 
therefore, parodus, agon, parabasis, exodus. Between the para- 
basis and the exodus there were scenes or references to a ritual- 
istic sacrifice, feast, and marriage. The feast was evidently not 
represented, as it is behind the scenes in almost every Aristo- 
phanic comedy. The marriage was a symbol of the fertility 
which the ritual was to insure. 

In the Peloponnesus were bands of actors, variously called 
phlyakes, autokabdaloi, phallophori, which also traced their 
origin to the cult of Dionysus. In Megara, about 581 B.c., a 
kind of farce played by peasants and satirizing the wealthier 
classes came into existence. This farce was transported by 
Susarion from Megara, about 570 s.c., into the Attic deme of 
Icaria where it was evidently combined with the comus, by in- 
tercalating satiric scenes between the parts of the comus. At 
first there was probably little if any connection between the 
comic scenes of the farces and the spectacular comus; but the 
two disconnected elements were welded together, probably by 
making the chorus and the leader (or leaders) play a part in 
the comic plot. Continuity, if not unity, would be attained. 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK COMEDY 107 


Unity in comedy is not very noticeable until the later plays of 
Aristophanes and even then is not perfect. 

The Dorian farces did not contain a real plot, but rather a 
situation. According to Athenzus, the stealing of a fruit or a 
satire of a foreign doctor and his outlandish jargon were sub- 
jects of these plays. Megarian comedy was political in tone. 
As produced by Susarion, it was evidently a series of more or 
less isolated scenes in verse and was about three hundred lines 
long. These farces may be compared in structure to the series 
of scenes, with little connection with the plot, found after the 
parabasis in the Acharnians. According to Aristotle, “the in- 
vented fable or plot, however, originated in Sicily, with Epichar- 
mus and Phormis.” 

Epicharmus began to present comedies at Syracuse by 486 B.c. 
Therefore the introduction of an invented plot into Attic comedy 
took place some time after the writers of tragedy had become 
relatively expert in the handling of what may be designated as 
a real plot, simple as it must have been. Comedy, by nature, 
can make its effect and arouse laughter by mere buffoonery and 
lampooning. Tragedy, on the other hand, deals with episodes in 
the lives of heroes and gods; and these episodes even in narrative 
form contain the germ of dramatic action, whereas the lampoon- 
ing and satirizing of individuals or classes of society, which 
form the basis of Dorian and Megarian farces, lacked the element 
of dramatic plot. The modern vaudeville sketch entertains the 
audience without containing the vestige of a plot, in the modern 
sense of the word. Although the ritual to insure fertility offered 
a framework for dramatic action and for the development of 
plot before the eyes of the spectator and contained a certain 
embryonic dramatic plot in itself, the influence of tragedy, with 
its well-defined though simple plot, had to be brought to bear 
on comedy before this latter form of dramatic art could actually 
be said to contain a plot with all the elements of a developing 
action and story implied by that term. The special influence 
of the ritual to insure fertility was to cause the plot to develop 
in the present and to keep the action before the eyes of the spec- 


108 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


tator, when the plot and action were introduced; whereas the 
influence of the ritual of the worship of the dead hero had kept 
the action more in the past and behind the scenes in tragedy. 

Aristotle assures us, however, that comedy had “certain defi- 
nite forms at the time when the record of those termed comic 
poets begins.” Thus it seems highly probable that when Aris- 
totle ascribes the introduction of the plot to Epicharmus, he is 
referring to a fairly well-developed plot with an exposition, a 
climax and a dénouement. The twenty-nine titles of the come- 
dies or dramata of Epicharmus may be divided into two classes: 
those on realistic subjects, such as the Peasant and the Megarian 
Woman, and those on mythological subjects which correspond 
to the subjects of the Athenian tragedy and satyr-play, such as 
Busiris and the Marriage of Hebe. It is possible that Epichar- 
mus was composing such plays under the influence of Attic 
tragedy and that the element of plot was injected in this way 
into plays of a strictly comic nature. How much farther this 
possible influence worked is a matter of conjecture. Some frag- 
ments seem to point to a prologue. On the other hand, these 
dramata lacked a chorus, although there were ensemble scenes 
and songs. The individual characters must have been more im- 
portant than those in contemporary Attic drama. The action 
was doubtless on the stage, since there was no reason why it 
should be behind the scenes. Yet since the plot of contemporary 
tragedy was simple and since comedy had amused the spectators 
without plot, the action in his plays must have developed quickly 
and with few complications. Epicharmus could depend upon 
brilliant wit, dialectics, clever reasoning, and juggling of words. 
He possessed ability for dialogue: the fundamental requisite for 
the comic playwright. 

His comedy had no apparent connection with the ritualistic 
worship of Dionysus, but had reached a point where it might 
have developed easily and quickly into a form resembling New 
Comedy. Indeed, Plautus did imitate him. Epicharmus em- 
ployed the characters of the drunken man, the boor, and the 
parasite which will appear in New Comedy. So far as we know, 


THE ORIGIN OF GREEK COMEDY 109 


he was the first to put them on the stage. The title Megarian 
Woman sounds more like the title of a New Comedy than of an 
Aristophanic comedy. 

Although Epicharmus introduced plot into comedy, the choral 
tradition in Attic drama was so strong that the structure of his 
plays was not accepted as a whole. Attic comedy retained the 
chorus and tried to harmonize the new element of plot with its 
original spectacular, choral and musical elements. The first at- 
tempts were probably not very successful, for, according to 
Tzetzes, it was Cratinus who made a more regular arrangement 
of the scenes of comedy and began to model the structure of 
his comedies on the technique of A‘schylean tragedy. It would 
be natural for comedy to undergo the influence of tragedy at this 
time in the middle of the fifth century when tragic drama was 
reaching a high degree of technical excellence. 

A chorus was first granted comedy by the archon in 486 B.c. 
Before that date the chorus had been formed of volunteers. 
“Who it was who supplied it with characters or prologues or a 
plurality of speaking rédles and the like has remained unknown,” 
says Aristotle. This remained unknown because comedy had 
characters and a plurality of speaking roles either from the 
early days of the ritual or of the non-choral comedies of the 
Peloponnesus. The prologue was either imitated from early 
tragedy or was due to the influence of non-choral comedy. Fan- 
tastic animal disguises for the comic chorus were certainly in 
vogue by about 460 B.c. when Magnes was writing such plays 
as the Birds and the Frogs ; and such costumes are probably due 
to the influence of old theriomorphic dances. 

Crates, who had acted in the plays of Cratinus, “was the first 
of Athenian poets to drop the comedy of invective,” according 
to Aristotle, “and to frame stories of a general and non-personal 
nature, in other words fables or plots.” Thus in his Beasts, two 
people dream of a time when men will no longer be in need of 
slaves but will be served by animals or even by utensils endowed 
with intelligence. Aristotle’s statement does not mean that 
Crates introduced a well-knit plot with a “beginning, a middle, 


110 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


and an end,” but that he used situations which were not actual 
events, and abstract, rather than real persons, as his characters. 
The satire and lampooning were at least veiled. Such an act of 
the imagination means inventing a fable or plot, but it does not 
mean the introduction of a plot in the sense of an action devel- 
oped to an end. 

Cratinus, however, was known to the ancients as “the people’s 
lash.” He spared neither persons nor ideas. Even Pericles did 
not escape his lampooning. Fragments of Crates and of his 
imitator Pherecrates point to a comedy like the less personal 
plays of the fourth century; but Cratinus and Aristophanes held 
to the older tradition of coarser wit. Aristophanes, with his un- 
bridled imagination, found the older comedy a more fitting me- 
dium in which to deliver his sledgehammer blows of humor and 
to lampoon his fellow citizens under a very thin veil. He was 
not an innovator in regard to the construction of comedy at the 
beginning of his career. 

The plot of Aristophanic comedy is uninvolved. It is a situa- 
tion which allows two sides of a question to be argued. The in- 
terest consists in looking at the situation from various angles. 
It is a piece a thése. The point of attack is not late in the simple 
story or plot, as it is in tragedy. The action is almost entirely 
on the stage. Few if any past events need explanation. There 
are no concealed identities or intricate relationships among the 
characters such as occur in tragedy and in New Comedy and 
which need explanation. In these circumstances, exposition is 
a simple and easy task; whereas in contemporary tragedy it 
was more difficult. The audience listening to tragedy was some- 
times aided in grasping the situation by pre-knowledge of the 
myth which formed the basis of the plot; but in comedy the 
situation was known to the audience because it involved a con- 
temporary political or social question such as the value of peace 
(Acharnians and Lysistrata); democracy (Knights); new and 
old education (Clouds). In the Knights the audience merely 
has to identify the two slaves as Nicias and Demosthenes. 
Through the satirical but thin mask of the Paphlagonian, the 


a ee 


ARISTOPHANES III 


spectator must perceive Cleon. There is nothing else to be ex- 
plained to the contemporary audience. The action can develop 
freely; or rather Aristophanes can present the question of the 
value of democracy from all sides in a series of burlesque scenes. 
Because the audience was perfectly familiar with the political or 
social situation, it followed the series of scenes with ease. It 
was not a question of following an intricately developing plot. 
There is less plot in a comedy of Aristophanes than there is in 
any comedy of Bernard Shaw. 

Of the eleven extant comedies of Aristophanes only two of 
them, Acharnians and Women in Council, begin with an ex- 
tended monologue. Both these opening speeches are plainly 
parodies of the opening monologue of tragedy. The exposition 
of the Acharnians is a parody of Telephus of Euripides. The 
speech of Praxagora in the Women in Council, in which she apos- 
trophizes the lamp, is a burlesque of poetic invocations of the 
opening of tragedies, which survive in Senecan drama. Thus 
we find an influence, through burlesque, of the technique of 
tragedy on the construction of comedy. 

The first speech in Lysistrata is a short monologue, but the 
real exposition is in dialogue. In the Clouds, Strepsiades begins 
with a monologue, but only because his son is sleeping. There 
are two characters on the stage. The usual opening of Aristo- 
phanic comedy is a scene of dialogue. Very often two slaves, as 
in New Comedy, are discoursing; and, when the attention of the 
audience is caught, one of them directly addresses the spectators 
and explains the situation in a few words. Thus it is in the 
Knights, Wasps and Peace, while in the Birds one of the prin- 
cipal characters sets forth the simple fact necessary to under- 
stand the situation. These explanations are not so involved 
as they are in the Euripidean prologue or in the prologues of 
later comedy. They are simple and direct. Probably, as in 
the case of the parabasis in which the audience is directly ad- 
dressed, these words of explanation are a survival of conditions 
in primitive comedies in which the bands of revellers had scarcely 
become actors and when there was little line of demarcation 


112 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


between merrymakers and onlookers, as jests were bandied back 
and forth between them. In the Knights, Demosthenes says: 


Would you I told the story to the audience? 
and Nicias replies: 


Not a bad plan; but let us ask them first 
To show us plainly by their looks and cheers 
If they take pleasure in our words and acts. 


Then Demosthenes commences his explanation of the burlesque 
situation. We find that Demosthenes and Nicias are slaves of 
the bean-fed, crabbed, somewhat deaf old man Demus, or, in 
other words, the Athenian people. Demus has lately bought a 
most villainous and calumniating slave, a tanner of Paphlagonia, 
or Cleon. The question is how can Nicias and Demosthenes 
(the aristocrats) escape from the power of Cleon (the democratic 
demagogue). Nicias steals the oracles of the Paphlagonian, and 
the oracles disclose the prophecy that a sausage-seller will destroy 
the Paphlagonian leather-seller and of course the sausage-seller 
enters immediately. Here again the comedy burlesques the 
technique of tragedy, for the plot depends upon. the fulfilment 
of the oracle, just as did many a dignified tragic plot. For this 
reason the action of the Knights, unlike many other Aristophanic 
comedies, develops to the end, as do the plots of tragedy. 
Since practically all the scenes in Aristophanic comedy are 
the result of a riotous imagination, it is not strange to find 
that the opening of most of the comedies is theatrically effective. 
In the Acharnians, there is the turbulent meeting of the assembly. 
The hero of Peace enters on the back of a huge beetle. In the 
Clouds, the sleepless Strepsiades bewails the debts brought upon 
him by his snoring son who lies in the bed next to his. In the 
opening scenes of the Wasps, Xanthias and Sosias are watching 
the house of Philocleon with Bdelycleon on guard on the roof, 
to circumvent the old man as he tries to escape when his friends, 


ARISTOPHANES 113 


the jurymen, bearing lanterns to light their way, summon him 
before dawn to the law courts. At the opening of the Frogs, 
Dionysus and Xanthias are asking the road to Hades; and then 
Dionysus is ferried across the dark, swampy waters to the song 
of the Frogs. Throughout almost all the plays, similar remark- 
able scenes form the background for burlesque and satire; and 
such situations are effective in gaining the attention of an 
audience immediately. 

The exposition, though plain and handled quickly, never dis- 
closes the course the action will take; nor does Aristophanes 
find it necessary to employ foreshadowing except as a burlesque 
of tragedy, as in the oracles in the Knights or the dreams of the 
slaves in the Wasps, which are modelled on the dignified tragic 
framework. Foreshadowing and suspense are necessarily neg- 
ligible quantities in comedies which depend for their interest on 
spectacle, satire, and burlesque rather than on plots of intricate 
construction or actions which develop through surprising inci- 
dents. The construction of Aristophanic comedy, therefore, is 
conditioned by the fact that it is a piece d thése. A question is 
set up. It is solved; and, finally, the effects of the solution are 
represented. 

In the Acharnians (425 B.c.) the peace question forms the 
basis of the plot. The play opens with Diczopolis at the Pnyx 
waiting for the Assembly to convene. This worthy citizen is 
tired of war and informs the audience in a monologue that he 
is “thoroughly prepared to riot, wrangle, interrupt the speakers 
whene’er they speak of anything but peace.” The Assembly 
meets; and when the several ambassadors make their reports, 
Diceopolis constantly interrupts, derides and exposes the pre- 
cious humbugs. Since the question of peace with Sparta is 
farthest removed from the thoughts of the presidents, he bids 
Amphitheus set out to the Lacedemonian kingdom and make a 
private peace for him. 

Since comedy does not pretend as yet to observe any verisimili- 
tude in regard to lapse of time or change of scene, as soon as 
the Assembly is dissolved, Amphitheus is seen returning from 


TI4 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Lacedemonia bringing samples of peace in the shape of treaties 
of five, ten, and thirty years’ duration. Diczopolis finds the 
thirty-year brand delectable and chooses it joyfully. 

The prologue is over, for Amphitheus enters pursued by a 
band of enraged old men. They are the Acharnians who form 
the chorus of the play and make their entrance, noisy and 
turbulent, in striking contrast to the dignified entrance of the 
tragic chorus. These Acharnians, whose vineyards have been 
destroyed by the long war, are infuriated at the idea of any 
peace with Sparta which does not provide them with indemnities 
for their losses. They pelt Amphitheus with stones until they 
hear Diceopolis crying from within to keep a holy silence; and, 
realizing that he is the man they really seek, the irate old 
men stand aside as Diceopolis enters to celebrate the rites of 
the Rural Dionysia. 

Unlike the tragic chorus, which is rarely if ever out of full 
sympathy with the hero, the Acharnians are distinctly hostile to 
Diceopolis, and they interrupt the ceremony by hurling stones 
at the hero of this play. A fight ensues in which we may see a 
survival of the old ritual. Dicxopolis, however, finally makes 
himself heard in the uproar, and proposes to argue the justice 
of his conclusion of a separate peace while laying his head on 
the chopping-block. The chorus refuses to hear him. ‘There- 
upon, he threatens to slay a hostage dear to the Acharnians and 
he withdraws, leaving the chorus alarmed and anxious. | 

Here is dramatic suspense of a kind which recalls tragic situa- 
tions and it is not surprising to find that Aristophanes is 
burlesquing Euripides’ Telephus in this part of his play and in 
the following scenes. In Euripides’ tragedy, Telephus is only 
successful in gaining a hearing from the Greeks by playing a 
very melodramatic trick, characteristic of Euripidean dramaturgy. 
He seizes Orestes, the infant son of Agamemnon, and threatens 
to kill him unless the Greeks hear his plea. So Diczopolis comes 
forth from his house bearing a “child” of the Acharnians, in the 
shape of a basket of charcoal, which he threatens to slay unless 
he is allowed to argue his case. He asks permission to dress 


ARISTOPHANES 118 


like many of the heroes of Euripides and especially like Telephus, 
in the rags of a beggar. He straightway betakes himself to the 
house of Euripides; and, in a scene of lively satire on the 
penchant of that poet to attempt to arouse sympathy for his 
characters by their ragged and pitiable condition, he borrows 
the costume of Telephus. 

Then begins the important scene in which Diczopolis, de- 
fending his course in making a private peace, discusses the 
whole problem of the play. It is the verbal struggle without 
which no Aristophanic comedy is complete. This scene con- 
tributes the canonical agon which is evidently a survival of the 
old ritual performed to insure fertility. Diczopolis converts 
half of the chorus to his view, and again we find a phenomenon 
impossible in Greek tragedy: a chorus divided against itself. 
The first half-chorus, however, calls upon Lamachus for aid and 
he enters, crested and in panoply of war, as the individual villain 
or antagonist of the hero who practically personifies peace. The 
agon is continued between these two characters; but Lamachus 
is worsted in the wordy debate and the rest of the chorus is 
won over by the “plea of truce so ably set forth by Diczopolis.” 

The problem is solved and a modern play would end here; but 
it is not the Aristophanic procedure to end the play with the 
solution of the problem. He demonstrates the result of the 
solution. Here, as in other comedies, occur a few lines of tran- 
sition after the agon which foreshadow the ensuing scenes to be 
represented after the parabasis. Diczopolis announces that he 
is going to install a private market. Megarians and Beotians 
may trade with him—but not Lamachus, that is, not the mili- 
tarists. _ 

Then occurs the parabasis in which the chorus doffs its cos- 
tume and directly addresses the audience on subjects which do 
not concern the plot of the play. 

When Diczopolis sets up his market, the second part of the 
play begins with a series of scenes demonstrating the value of 
peace. Such scenes are generally in groups of two parallel 
situations. Thus in this play, a Megarian comes to sell his 


116 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


two daughters as little pigs for sacrifice. A sycophant arrives 
and denounces the goods as contraband. He is beaten for his 
pains. Then in a similar scene, a Bcoeotian comes to take ad- 
vantage of the joys of peace by selling his game to Diczopolis. 
He, in turn, is denounced by an informer; but the informer is 
seized and carried away to Beeotia as a curiosity. The “horrors” 
of war are shown by a scene in which a servant of Lamachus is 
refused a share of Diczopolis’ purchases. Warriors shall go 
hungry at the great Pitcher-feast, to which all citizens must 
bring their share of provisions. After a second parabasis, prepa- 
rations for the feast continue; but Lamachus is summoned to 
go to battle, while Diczopolis is invited to a feast. As the 
soldier takes his weapon, Diczopolis picks up his precious 
basket of food. 

When they enter once more, Lamachus, groaning and wounded, 
is limping along between two slaves; while in humorous con- 
trast, Diczopolis enters joyously and triumphantly between two 
amorous courtezans. He has drained the pitcher all alone and 
is riotously shouting victory and caressing his darlings. Thus 
the relative value of peace and war is fully demonstrated and 
the play ends with a procession and a pzan as the chorus escorts 
Diceopolis off the stage in triumph. 

Aristophanes, in the Knights (424 B.c.), made a slight step 
forward in regard to the unity of his plot. The oracle, an- 
nounced at the beginning and fulfilled at the end of the play in 
imitation of tragedy, at least gives the plot the appearance of 
developing until the end instead of stopping in the middle of 
the comedy. If the Knights is carefully analyzed, however, it 
will be seen that the plot is practically static from the moment 
that the Paphlagonian and the Sausage-seller meet and begin to 
threaten each other. 

The Clouds (423 B.c.) contains a plot which has, as Aristotle 
would say, “a beginning, a middle and an end.” It presents 
many events and they follow each other in logical sequence. 
They are the result of the idiosyncrasies in the character of 
Strepsiades. The unity of action arises from the interplay of 


— se on - 


| 
| 
| 


ARISTOPHANES 117 


character and event and not from burlesquing the technique of 
tragedy, as in the Knights. Strepsiades and Phidippides are 
individuals of flesh and blood. Socrates, though a travesty on 
the real man, is a character, not a mere role. Nicias, Demos- 
thenes and Cleon in the Knights are but figures with a comic 
mask in comparison to Socrates in the Clouds. 

But the Clouds was not successful. In the Wasps (422 B.c.) 
Aristophanes complains that his efforts were not appreciated. 
While he is not going to revert to the older vulgar comedy, yet 
this play will not be more clever than the spectators. It is idle 
to speculate just how serious Aristophanes was in this attitude. 
Nevertheless, the Wasps is a reversion to the earlier type of play. 
After the parabasis, occurs a series of scenes rather than a train 
of events. The broad humor and the buffoonery of the trial of 
the dog, the decking out of Philocleon for the feast and his 
boisterous drunken return from the banquet were provocative 
of Homeric laughter. Low comedy and slapstick humor were 
not wanting in the Clouds, yet the Wasps may have made a 
greater appeal to the audience than satirical comedy of character 
with a developing plot, such as the Clouds. There is little evi- 
dence that the audience cared much for the story or plot in 
comedy. | 

Aristophanes, therefore, returned to the older form in the 
Wasps, Peace (421 B.c.), and Birds (414 B.c.) in which plot 
or story is relegated once more to the background. Lysistrata 
(411 B.c.) and Women Celebrating the Thesmophoria (411 B.c.) 
both contain interesting plots and foreshadow later comedy 
which, under further influence of tragedy, will introduce a story 
furnishing some curiosity, suspense, and a bit of sentiment. 
These elements were almost wholly lacking in Aristophanic 
comedy. The Frogs (405 B.c.) is later, but is a reversion to the 
formless, almost plotless type of play. Aristophanes did not 
march steadily toward a carefully developed action, nor did he 
go far in that direction, because he could hold his audience 
through spectacle, fancy, humor, satire, burlesque, and the dis- 
cussion of his thesis. The situation had to be striking. The 


118 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


story could be a background. One does not remember easily 
the plots of Old Comedy. One never forgets the thesis demon- 
strated by a series of amazing scenes devised by an unbridled 
imagination. The six elements of the Aristotelian synthesis 
in the order of importance in Aristophanic comedy would be: 
thought, diction, spectacle, character, plot, music. 

Old Comedy was militant. It used, indeed abused the weapon 
of personal satire. It was political, not social. It dealt with 
local public life. There was personal satire in later comedy 
and in New Comedy; but personal satire was not their end and 
aim as was the case in Old Comedy. The younger contempo- 
raries of Aristophanes, such as Theopompus, Strattis and 
Sannyrion still dealt in personalities; but they seem to have 
been less violent in their attacks. The fierce polemics of Aristoph- 
anes and Cratinus were more and more avoided by this 
younger generation. The tone of comedy swung back to that 
of the comedy of Crates and Pherecrates. Comedy became 
allegorical and mythological and hence more general, such as 
it had been in the hands of the Sicilians, Phormis and Epi- 
charmus. Because of his great genius in handling the older 
comedy, Aristophanes had delayed the development of that art 
towards the goal towards which it was tending when he began to 
write, which it neared perceptibly in his last extant play, Plutus, 
and which it finally reached in New Comedy. 

These younger men began to write between 415 and 405 B.c.; 
and most of them continued to produce after 388 B.c. when the 
choral songs and the parabasis had disappeared. No law was 
promulgated against the representation of living personages on 
the stage or forbidding personal satire. Yet a change was 
creeping over the tone and spirit of comedy and more general 
problems were being presented in dramatic form. Times had 
changed. The prominent men against whom Aristophanes hurled 


his thunderbolts were gone. The disastrous Peloponnesian War 


had dimmed the glory of Athens for ever. The national pride 
was broken; and public affairs that are admittedly bad are not 
fitted for successful satire in the theatre. Travesty of tragic 


ARISTOPHANES 119 


heroes and of the gods began to take the place in the theatre of 
the lampooning of generals, statesmen, and poets who were 
forgotten. In parodying tragic themes once more, comedy re- 
turned to an old source of amusement which had existed in 
the earlier period. Strattis wrote at least six parodies of well- 
known tragedies among which are the Myrmidons of Atschylus, 
Troilus of Sophocles, and Medea of Euripides. Aristophanes had 
burlesqued the foreshadowing dream, the oracles of tragedy, and 
the messenger’s speech. In the Acharnians he had burlesqued 
melodramatic and sentimental scenes of Euripides’ Telephus. 
But these parodies, which retain the name of the original, were 
burlesques which probably followed the original play closely. 
The result would be a comedy constructed according to the 
technique of tragedy. The deep significance of such a procedure 
can be appreciated when it is remembered that New Comedy 
will resemble the construction of Euripidean tragedy far more 
than Aristophanic comedy, except in so far as Aristophanes 
imitated the technique of the tragedy, which he seems to have 
done, to some extent, in his last play, Cocalus. According to the 
author of the Greek Life of Aristophanes, Cocalus contained a 
recognition scene; and the recognition scene is a device employed — 
primarily by tragedy. 

This development of comedy from personal satire towards the 
refutation of general error and the transformation of the tech- 
nique of Old Comedy into New Comedy can be seen in the 
second version of Plutus, Aristophanes’ last extant comedy, pro- 
duced in 388 B.c. In this play there is still a thesis demonstrated. 
Aristophanes postulates the idea that the God of Wealth is 
blind and then shows by a series of scenes what happens when 
Plutus regains his sight. The first part of the play contains 
the few events of the developing action. The second part is a 
demonstration. The unity of the play depends upon the fact 
that all the scenes are grouped around one idea, and not upon a 
developing action as in Lysistrata or the Clouds. The situation 
is allegorical, but the scenes are less fantastic and seem less the 
result of giving a wild imagination free play. While it is not 


120 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the best Aristophanic comedy, it is the one which would most 
easily be understood by the modern audience without an inti- 
mate knowledge of Greek life and Athenian political conditions. 
In so far as it deals with a general situation, it differs from 
Old Comedy which dealt with actualities. 

The scene of action is in a street in front of the house of 
Chremylus and the only lapse of time is the passing of one night. 
In other Aristophanic plays the scene changes and the audience 
may be suddenly transported from one part of the city to an- 
other or to some fantastic region as in the Birds, or to the abode 
of Zeus as in Peace, or across the Styx to Hades as in the Frogs. 
But this exterior street scene, which does not change, is the usual 
setting of later comedy. While there was no rule for the unity 
of place or time, yet it was the general practice of tragedy and 
of later comedy to retain the same scene and to have the action 
take place in “one revolution of the sun.” 

The opening scene consists of a dialogue between the old 
Chremylus and his slave. The conversation of an old man and 
a slave is later a characteristic opening of Latin comedy. The 
old man informs the slave that he has consulted the oracle as 
‘to whether his son should become a rogue in order to succeed 
and has been told to follow the first man he meets and win him, 
in friendship, to his home. Thus the point of attack fails to 
include an event intimately connected with the plot and this 
event must be narrated after the play begins. The consulting 
of the oracle and the position of the point of attack after an im- 
portant event in the plot recall the technique of Greek tragedy 
and look forward to the technique of later comedy. The expo- 
sition is more detailed and longer than in the comedies in which 
the point of attack includes all events connected with the plot. 

This man whom Chremylus is following turns out to be the 
blind God of Wealth. Chremylus finally persuades Plutus to 
come and dwell in his house. This is a carefully developed bit 
of action ending with a peripeteia; and such a scene in the pro- 
logue is not characteristic of Old Comedy. 

When Plutus has gone with Chremylus, Cario, the slave, sum- 


Oe — ——— 


ARISTOPHANES I2I 


mons the Farmers who form the chorus, and tells them that 
Chremylus will make their life luxurious. After a dance by the 
chorus, Blepsidemus, a neighbor of Chremylus, enters. He has 
learned of the good fortune of Chremylus, but he suspects that 
the old man has acquired it by theft. He. is finally convinced, 
however, that this guest of Chremylus is Plutus, or Wealth 
himself. The tone and the handling of the situation remind 
one far more of scenes which we shall find in New Comedy 
rather than the burlesque, boisterous scenes of Old Comedy. 

They are making arrangements to take Plutus to the temple 
of Asclepius to have him cured of his blindness, when Poverty 
stops them, objecting strongly to such a procedure; and she 
offers to prove that she is the source of every good to men and 
that men live through her. This leads to the agon in which 
she argues that all virtues and arts spring from her; but she is 
driven away with curses. Plutus is taken to the temple. A 
night is supposed to elapse during which the sight of Plutus 
is restored. 

There are a few examples in earlier Aristophanic comedy of 
action taking place off the stage in order to introduce a bur- 
lesque messenger speech. In Plutus this important incident is 
simply related by Cario to the Wife and not in a burlesque man- 
ner. Perhaps Aristophanes did not wish to change the scene 
even in order to keep the action on the stage. Whatever the 
reason was, comedy was approaching tragedy in construction by 
not representing certain scenes, especially those which do not 
take place in the street. Tragedy does not usually represent 
interior scenes. New Comedy will be similar to tragedy in this 
respect. 

The play continues without a parabasis which would naturally 
occur here or just after the return of Chremylus and Plutus 
from the temple. The restoration of the sight of the god is 
the important event of which the results are demonstrated in 
the usual episodic, parallel scenes. 

Not only is the parabasis lacking in this play, but also there 
are no choral songs. Indeed, one of the plainest signs of the 


122 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


transformation which the technique of comedy was undergoing 
is found in the diminishing importance of the choral réle about 
388 B.c. when Plutus was produced in the extant version. In 
the first part of Peace, the réle of the chorus is almost as impor- 
tant as the role of Trygeus. In the Knights, the chorus fight 
and beat the Paphlagonian. In the first part of Aristophanic 
comedy the chorus plays an active rdle and one connected with 
the plot; but in the second part its connection with the play is 
very slight. This is true even of the earliest comedies, such 
as the Acharnians, the Knights, the Wasps, the Birds. ‘The 
chorus furnished spectacle; but the spectacular is not always 
dramatic, and sooner or later the chorus was bound to disap- 
pear. In Lysistrata the double chorus seems to be necessary to 
the plot, but in reality it is merely an auxiliary of the chief 
characters. The passive quality of its réle, exemplified in the 
second part of this play, began to extend over the whole play. 
The chorus plays no part in the action of the Frogs. It began 
to become a mere spectator. Its songs, like some choral songs 
in the tragedies of Euripides, are tenuously connected with the 
situation. 

The chorus is of little importance even in the first part of 
Plutus. It is a mere onlooker. It recites no parabasis with 
bitter invective and satire. There is but one choricon. At the 
time of the second version of Plutus, the archon still furnished 
a chorus; but the choregus, under the pretext of poverty, refused 
to have the comic chorus instructed, and the chorus entered only 
into the dialogue. With the parabasis and choral songs re- 
moved, there was less reason to retain the chorus itself. Its 
part in the dialogue and its rdle were finally given to a single 
actor. Just how long the chorus remained as an integral part 
of the play is not known; but probably Antiphanes and his 
contemporaries constructed their plays with a chorus appearing 
only between the acts. It would be natural for the later poets 
in view of these circumstances to allow this element, which 
had become undramatic in comedy, to fall into disuse. 

In order to replace the gaps left by dropping the parabasis 


ARISTOPHANES 123 


and choral songs, the dialogue had to be extended; and in Plutus 
we find the juggling with words, especially on the part of the 
slaves, which will appear in Latin comedy. Indeed, the grow- 
ing importance of the slaves in the Frogs and Plutus, comedies in 
which the chorus is relatively insignificant, may well be due to 
an elaboration of these réles by the playwright to offset the dis- 
appearing choral rdle. At any rate, Xanthias and Cario are 
direct ancestors of the slaves of Plautus and Terence. 3 

When the parabasis and choral songs had disappeared, the 
only technical element belonging to Old Comedy exclusively 
was the agon. It still remained in Plutus ; but instead of being 
an essential scene, it seems more episodic than any other scene 
in the play, although the plot is not an important factor. The 
character of Poverty is introduced to argue for the thesis that 
an unequal distribution of wealth is to be desired and that 
virtue and the arts exist because of her. The rest of the play 
is hardly a demonstration of this thesis. This part of the tech- 
nical structure of Old Comedy, which already seems to be some- 
what out of place in Plutus, probably disappeared very 
soon. Its place may have been filled with descriptions in dia- 
logue form of banquets, of the blandishments of courtezans and 
coquettes, and of the feats of gourmands. Comedy in the early 
part of the fourth’ century resembled Plutus, with the scene of 
the agon removed. 

Lucian’s dialogue, Timon the Misanthrope, probably follows 
the construction of Antiphanes’ comedy Timon fairly closely. 
Timon begins by upbraiding Zeus because he closes his eyes to 
the wrongdoing of mortals and to the lack of respect shown 
him by men. This passage would correspond to a monologue 
in the play. The point of attack is after Timon has lost his 
money by pouring out his wealth in floods to his friends. 
Shakespeare, writing under a medieval system of playmaking, 
places his point of attack before Timon has become poverty- 
stricken. Shakespeare is telling a story. Lucian and Antiphanes 
are demonstrating a thesis. 

Zeus orders Hermes to take Wealth and visit Timon. Wealth 


124 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


objects that he was badly treated by Timon, but finally is 
persuaded to go. On the journey, a long conversation takes 
place between Hermes and Wealth in regard to riches and why 
Wealth is lame and blind. They arrive and drive Poverty away 
from Timon who finds Treasure, who has accompanied Wealth. 
Then a series of scenes occurs in which Timon’s old friends, 
who cast him out when they had ruined him, try to wheedle 
themselves back into his good graces. They are all received 
by Timon with blows of his pick and driven away, as are the 
sycophants and informers and imposters in the second part of 
Old Comedy. 

Antiphanes’ Timon evidently did not differ greatly from 
Aristophanes’ Plutus in construction, There is the same move- 
ment of the point of attack toward the dénouement in both 
plays. The exposition is given in the opening monologue. There 
is not much action; but there is a peripeteia, and the second 
part of the play is a series of scenes demonstrating the result 
of this peripeteia. There are long scenes in which the interest 
lies in allegorical discussions. The boisterous element in Old 
Comedy has given way to a more refined, almost rhetorical 
humor. Comedy of this period seems to have undergone the 
influence of the rhetoricians and sophists as did tragedy. 

In comparison with Plutus, however, there is more of a plot 
in Timon, for the characters introduced at the end of the play 
actually suffer retribution for their former sins towards Timon. 
In Plutus, the other characters do not have any special con- 
nection with Chremylus. In Timon, the last scenes have been 
prepared by previous events in the story. They represent the 
retribution visited upon the very persons who had contributed 
to Timon’s ruin by accepting his largess before the play begins. 
That their desertion of Timon in his hour of need is in the 
story, but not within the limits of the play, is significant. The 
influence of tragedy was operative in placing the point of attack 
of comedy closer to the dénouement. 

These scenes constitute a dénouement of comedy in which the 
virtuous are rewarded and the wicked are punished. The similar 


NEW COMEDY 125 


scenes in Plutus end the play, but they do not constitute a real 
dénouement. One event in Plutus, the consultation of the 
oracle, takes place before the play begins; but in no Aris- 
tophanic comedy is the dénouement prepared by events which 
precede the point of attack. This procedure is characteristic 
of tragedy. From now on, it will be found in both comedy and 
tragedy. Finally, the appearance of Poverty in Timon is moti- 
vated by the action. In Plutus, Poverty is introduced merely 
to make the agon or debate possible. 

In comparison with New Comedy, the plot of Timon is still 
unimportant and not interesting enough to carry the play. The 
chief interest lies in the episodic humor of monologues of cooks 
and parasites, in the allegory, in debates. Insistence upon such 
elements precluded the more careful treatment which the plot 
was to receive from Menander. His plots, like those of Greek 
tragedies, are interesting stories in themselves. 

The Persian Woman by Plautus is an adaptation of a play 
or plays belonging to the period of transition. In the first act, 
Toxilus, a slave, asks Sagaristio, another slave, for money to 
purchase the freedom of his mistress, Lemniselenis, from Dor- 
dalus, the procurer. Sagaristio promises to try to obtain the 
necessary amount. ‘Toxilus bribes the parasite, Saturio, by the 
promise of a dinner, to dress his daughter as a foreigner and 
allow her to be sold to the procurer as a slave. Thus Toxilus 
will obtain money and the parasite can appear and claim the 
girl as his daughter. Act IJ. Lemniselenis appears with her maid 
for an instant, saying: “Wretched is the person that is in love,” 
and exits. Toxilus gives a boy a letter for Lemniselenis. The 
boy meets Sophoclidisca, the maid, who has a letter for Toxilus. 
After a scene of much bantering, they go to deliver the letters. 
Sagaristio returns with the money which his master has given 
him to buy oxen but which he intends to hand over to Toxilus. 
After a scene of abuse between Sagaristio and the boy, Toxilus 
enters and receives the money with much bandying back and 
forth of jokes. Act III. The parasite and his daughter are 
ready for the trick of the false sale. Toxilus gives the pro- 


126 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


curer the money furnished by his obliging friend. They abuse 
each other. The procurer goes to fetch Lemniselenis. Act IV. 
With Sagaristio and the parasite’s daughter masquerading as 
Persians, the girl is sold to the procurer as a slave; but when 
Sagaristio has gone, the parasite enters, claims his daughter and 
drags the procurer to the magistrate. Act V. Toxilus, Lem- 
niselenis, Sagaristio and the boy are enjoying a banquet. Dor- 
dalus appears. They scoff at him and make game of him. The 
boys beat him. They continue the feast. 

The characteristics of New Comedy are conspicuously absent 
in this play. There is no real recognition scene, no real con- 
cealed identity so far as the audience is concerned. Circum- 
stances prior to the beginning of the play do not bring about 
the dénouement. The play could exist in just this form, with 
the possible exception of the love story, had Euripides never 
written a word. Even the love motive is very unimportant. The 
whole plot is very slight and serves, as does the plot of Old 
Comedy, merely as a background for comic scenes. As in Old 
Comedy, the point of attack is at the beginning of the story. 
Nothing of importance has to be explained, and hence there is 
no formal prologue to unveil the past. The plot is simple, de- 
velops slowly, and comes to an end in the fourth act; but the 
action is all on the stage. There is a banquet with revellers 
who take.the place of the Aristophanic chorus. There are whole 
scenes of abuse and a procurer who comes to interrupt the feast 
is beaten and scorned like the informer of Old Comedy. 

All these characteristics are due to the influence of Old Com- 
edy, not of tragedy. The parasite, however, is originally from 
Sicilian Comedy. The procurer has certainly not stepped from 
tragedy to comedy. The courtezan comes from Aristophanes; 
and she has learned to speak a few lines now and to appear 
momentarily at the beginning of the play. In Aristophanic com- 
edy, the courtezan was mute and appeared only in the last part 
of the play. Finally, the banquet, which was behind the scenes 
in Old Comedy, is now on the stage in spite of the scene in the 
street. 


NEW COMEDY 127 


In the middle period there was less buffconery, less inde- 
cency, less grandiose burlesque and spectacle, less fantasy and 
play of the imagination. The Muse of Comedy, once wild and 
fearless, was becoming docile and circumspect. She no longer 
lashed mercilessly men in public life, but was content to bur- 
lesque ancient gods and heroes. She indulged in tirades against 
courtezans or made them heroines of the play, instead of boldly 
attacking demigogues or lampooning a Socrates. On the surface, 
comedy became more moral and weaker in intellectual content. 
No great political, moral, or, artistic questions were discussed with 
rapier-like satire or Rabelaisian humor, although, under the in- 
fluence of the Frogs, literary criticism was still found at times. 
The element of personal satire became so unimportant that, 
according to Platonius, the masks, which in Old Comedy were 
made to resemble persons, now aimed only to excite laughter. 
The characters of Old Comedy, often drawn from life, were 
varied and individualistic. They now become stock types—a 
momentous change, and not a fortunate one. They turned into 
masks of different kinds but each kind was made from the same 
model, and the expression never changed. 

Comedy became social and more realistic. Some plays bear 
the names of trades such as the Goldsmith and the Painter. 
The Marriage of the Children of the Same Father and the Sisters 
by Antiphanes are evidence that family relationships, as in 
tragedy but not in Old Comedy, formed the basis of the plot. 
Ephippus’ play, the Doubles, recalls Euripides’ Helen and fore- 
shadows the Menechmi in which mistaken identity through 
similarity of appearance was to furnish the humor. — 

Platonius says that the authors of comedy were beginning 
to construct their plots more carefully. The Greek Life of 
Aristophanes says that he introduced into Cocalus the dramatic 
“seduction and recognition and all the other things that 
Menander imitated.” Unless that comedy is anomalous, the 
point of attack must have been after the seduction; and the 
concealed identity, revealed in the dénouement, furnished some 
suspense. 


128 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


A fragment of the prologue to Poetry Antiphanes contrasts 
tragedy and comedy as follows: 


Tragedy is, in all respects, a fortunate literary form in as much 
as, in the first place, its plots are familiar to the spectator before 
anyone has spoken. As a result, the poet has only to recall them 
[the plots] to memory. Let me only name (idipus and you know 
all the rest: his father, Laius, his mother, Jocasta, his daughters, 
his several sons, what he will suffer, what he has done. Again, if 
anyone mentions Alcmeon, even every child straightway says that 
he went mad and slew his mother and that Adrastus will straight- 
way come and go away again. Furthermore, whenever the poets are 
able to say nothing more but are absolutely at the end of their 
powers, they raise a machine, as easily as one raises a finger. and 
the spectator is satisfied. These conditions do not hold good for 
us [comic poets] but we have to invent everything, new names, 
previous events, present circumstances, the dénouement, the open- 
ing. If some Chremes or Phedon omits any of these features, he 
is hissed off the stage. These liberties are only allowed Peleus and 
‘Teucer. 


Aristophanes never felt any of these difficulties, at least until 
he began to write his last play, Cocalus. He invented a plot; 
but his plot was very simple and dealt with circumstances 
known to everyone in the audience. He only had to have an 
actor step out of his rdle for a moment and explain what cir- 
cumstances and what situation he was treating and all was 
plain to the spectators. He did not have to devise or give an 
exposition of previous events except in Plutus and in Cocalus. 
The dénouement of his story often came in the middle of the 
play. He did not have to answer any questions except his one 
great thesis. His point of attack was the beginning of the 
action; and his opening scene did not have to explain intricate 
situations or relationships, or conceal certain identities. On the 
other hand, it is evident from this passage that the plot of com- 
edy now carries an interest of curiosity. As in tragedy it rests 
upon previous events. The poet must decide upon the point in 


NEW COMEDY 129 


the story where his play must begin. He cannot take it for 
granted, as could the tragic poet, that the audience would know 
the identity or relationship of the characters as soon as they 
entered. In a general way, the masks and the costumes would 
furnish the information that the modern audience would glean 
from a program; but for the first time, so far as we know, a 
playwright complains of the difficulty of the art of exposition 
and of correctly placing the point of attack. The fact that 
Antiphanes complains that a dénouement must be invented shows 
that plots were becoming more intricate and more important. 
The play could not merely stop. It had to end. For this rea- 
son the recognition scene was introduced from tragedy to serve as 
dénouement and as a means of clearing up obstacles which dis- 
appear if true relationships are known. 

The influence of Euripidean tragedy on the comedy of this 
period is plainly attested by the playwrights themselves. 
Diphilus speaks of “the golden Euripides”; while Philemon says: 
“Tf in truth the dead have consciousness, gentlemen, I would 
hang myself so as to see Euripides.” In the life of Euripides 
by Satyrus we read “that reversals of fortune, violations of 
virgins, substitutions of children, recognition by means of 
rings and necklaces are the things which comprise the New Com- 
edy and these were brought to perfection by Euripides.” Suidas 
says of Anaxandrides that he introduced into comic art “love 
and the misfortunes of virgins.” The source of these motives 
is found in such plays as Jon. Whole lines were borrowed by 
Menander from Euripides. Indeed, it is difficult to know 
whether to ascribe certain fragments to Euripides or to 
Menander. ; 

Neither Aristophanic comedy nor Sophoclean tragedy can be 
regarded as realistic; but Euripidean tragedy and later comedy 
often present domestic and realistic scenes. In language and 
tone, Euripides drew nearer to comedy. The dénouements of 
Orestes and of his Antigone are endings of comedy with mar- 
riages. The plot of Jon, like that of Cocalus and of many other 
comedies, is based on a seduction and a recognition. The first 


130 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


extant long-lost child is Ion. He will have countless descendants 
in serious and comic drama down to the present whenever Greek 
and Latin influence is operative. 

The plot of Helen borders on the comic. Let Helen and 
Menelaus be unmarried and the framework is that of comedy, 
for the plot of New Comedy depends upon mistaken identity 
through similarity of appearance and upon obstacles in the 
path of lovers. When the last obstacle is overcome the play ends 
happily. The Euripidean tragedy is based on the idea that a 
replica of Helen went to Troy. When Menelaus finds the real 
Helen he is so baffled that he does not recognize her. Helen 
has become twins; and twins are the basis of the Menechmi. 
The play ends when Helen and Menelaus overcome the last ob- 
stacle separating them. 

The plot of Plautus’ Captives, adapted from a Greek comedy, 
borders on the tragic. Hegio, desirous of exchanging Elean 
prisoners for his son captured by the Eleans, has purchased two 
captives, one of whom is another son of his who was lost long 
ago and is now a servant. The two captives have changed sta- 
tions in life. Hegio intended to send the master to Elis to effect 
the exchange of his other son; but through ignorance he sent 
the servant. When he finds out what he has done, he con- 
demns to death the servant who is his own unrecognized son; 
but the recognition comes in time to save the boy. This situa- 
tion is the best for the deed of horror in tragedy, according to 
Aristotle. Here we have “one meditating some deadly injury 
to another, in ignorance of his relation” but making “the discoy- 
ery in time to draw back.” It is the situation in the tragedy 
Cresphontes, where, Aristotle says, “Merope on the point of slay- 
ing her son recognizes him in time.” One has only to compare 
this situation founded on human relationship with any Aris- 
tophanic comedy to realize how New Comedy differs from Old 
Comedy and sometimes resembles tragedy in tone, construction 
and emotional effect. 

Alcestis has a comic touch in the drunken Heracles. The 
scene in which Admetus and Pheres upbraid each other for not 


NEW COMEDY $37 


being willing to die to save Alcestis contains humor that is 
hardly even grim. The comic effects in the Bacchantes, when 
old Cadmus and the blind Tiresias prepare for the Bacchic 
revels and rehearse a few dance steps, remind one of the scant 
respect with which old men are portrayed in comedy. 

Under the influence of tragedy, the point of attack in com- 
edy moved toward the dénouement. Many events were thrown 
into the past. Other events went behind the scenes. The plot 
was developed ; but, after all, the plot of New Comedy is a back- 
ground for humorous episodes on the stage. The plot in many 
Euripidean tragedies is a background for emotional scenes on 
the stage. In both cases the plot is a means, not an end, and 
the element of chance is so freely employed that the action is 
not always even plausible or probable. 

The satyr-play helped to draw comedy into the framework 
of tragedy. This form of drama was cast entirely in the tragic 
mould. It contained no distinctive element, such as_ the 
parabasis, which differentiated it from tragedy. It differed only 
in tone and in the fact that the lyric element was materially 
reduced. It was unlike Old Comedy, however, because its prin- 
cipal characters, although amusing, inspired respect and the 
audience was in full sympathy with them. The Heracles in the 
satyr-play Syleus and in the tragedy Alcestis is amusing; but 
he is not merely amusing as he is in the comedy of the Frogs. 
In the Cyclops, the spectator would have a personal interest in 
the fate of Odysseus and a fellow feeling for him, which the 
principal character in an Aristophanic comedy could never arouse, 
no matter how much one might approve of his views and ac- 
tions. The plot of the satyr-plays was constructed on recogni- 
tions, disguises, misunderstandings, miscomprehended oracles, 
all of which are the basis of many a Euripidean tragedy and of 
New Comedy. 

New Comedy will accept the framework and, in certain re- 
spects, the tone of Euripidean tragedy. The satyr-play made 
this acceptance easier. For the most part, the stock characters 
of New Comedy, especially the mirth-provoking ones, will be 


132 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


drawn from Old Comedy. The sympathetic hero and heroine, 
the lovers in whose path obstacles are placed, will come from 
tragedy ; and with them will come new emotions of sympathy and 
sentiment, wholly lacking in Old Comedy. In Sophocles’ An- 
tigone, the lovers were tragically separated. Euripides united 
them in his version. The comic playwrights will follow Euripides 
in marrying their heroes and heroines at the end of their plays. 
‘Thus a marriage became the canonical dénouement of comedy. 
Greek tragedy and comedy, originally similar, then widely di- 
vergent, have now joined hands once more. Even in Aristotle’s 
time the poets were following “their public and writing as its 
wishes dictate” in giving tragedy a happy ending. 

The direct influence of tragedy on New Comedy is illustrated 
by the plot of Menander’s Arbitrants, for the situation is taken 
in part directly from Euripides’ Auge and in part from his 
Alope. In Auge, Heracles violated Auge during a festival and 
left a ring in her possession. In later years Heracles recognizes 
their child by means of the ring. In Alope, the heroine, daugh- 
ter of Cercyon, exposed her child of whom Poseidon was the 
father. A shepherd found it and took it to his house. Another 
shepherd asked him for the child and he gave it to him but re- 
fused to give the clothes in which the child was found. To 
settle their dispute, they bring the question to Cercyon. As in 
the Arbitrants, the judge is the grandfather of the child. In the 
tragedy, the grandfather recognizes the clothes as belonging to 
his daughter; but in the comedy, Smicrines does not recognize 
the ring which belongs to his son-in-law. The recognition 
scene, which performed so many functions in tragedy, became the 
usual dénouement of comedy through the influence of such 
plays as Jon and Helen. It is possible that in the Hero, Menan- 
der introduced the Hero as a divine personage to bring about the 
recognition scene. This would be the transference to comedy 
of the god from the machine who frequently intervenes in tragedy 
to solve the problem. Plautus employs a deus ex machina to 
bring the dénouement of Amphitryo. This is partially a bur- 


MENANDER 133 


lesque of tragedy, but it is evidence that, by parodying tragedy, 
comedy assumed a new form. 

The scene of the Arbitrants passes in a street or public square, 
around which are grouped the houses of Charisius, Smicrines and 
Cherestratus. The street scene, already found in Aristophanes’ 
Plutus, is from now on the regular setting for plays of lighter 
vein. Comedy is played outdoors; and centuries will pass be- 
fore it goes indoors. 

Act I. Onesimus, a slave, enters with a cook whom he has 
hired for the day; and from their conversation it is found that 
Charisius, the slave’s master, married recently Pamphila, the 
daughter of his neighbor, Smicrines. But the young husband 
has just bought the slave girl Habrotonon, a flute player, and 
has set aside his wife. When the cook has entered the house, 
Onesimus informs the audience in a monologue that the reason 
for this estrangement of the young couple is that Onesimus in- 
formed Charisius that Pamphila had given birth to a child dur- 
ing the absence of her husband and had exposed the infant. 
Smicrines, the father of Pamphila, enters and learns that a ban- 
quet is being prepared at the house of his son-in-law. He is 
scandalized at the action of Charisius, and decides to take his 
daughter home and reclaim her dowry. Davus, a slave, and 
Syriscus, a charcoal-burner, appear, accompanied by Syriscus’ 
wife who is carrying a child. The two men ask Smicrines to 
act as arbitrator of a question. Davus tells how he found the 
child and first decided to rear it, but finally gave it to Syriscus, 
at the latter’s repeated prayers. Syriscus, however, now de- 
mands certain trinkets found with the child but retained by 
Davus. Smicrines decides that they must be given up to Syris- 
cus; but, as Syriscus and his wife, left alone, joyfully look them 
over, Onesimus appears and recognizes among them a ring be- 
longing to his master. The slave finally persuades Syriscus to 
give him the ring; and his first plan is to turn it over to his 
master, but he decides to wait, because his master is banqueting. 

Act II. Onesimus still hesitates to speak to Charisius of the 
ring. He fears his young master may become reconciled to 


134 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Pamphila. Habrotonon bursts out of the house. Charisius, who 
bought her three days before, will have nothing to do with her. 
Syriscus arrives, and, on inquiring about the ring, is told by 
Onesimus that Charisius lost it at a festival, that in all proba- 
bility he had forcibly seduced a maiden and is the father of 
the child with whom it was found. Habrotonon then hits upon 
a plan by which she may be freed. She will take the ring, show 
it to Charisius and tell him she is the mother of his child. Then 
she will search for the mother whom she remembers seeing 
at the festival. Onesimus consents, after objecting that in this 
way she will be freed but he will remain a slave. Smicrines en- 
ters, and in a monologue explains how he has come to get his 
daughter. The cook comes out wailing that the whole banquet 
is a failure, while Smicrines pours out his anger at his son-in- 
law’s prodigality. Smicrines goes into the house to see what 
he shall do with Charisius and a band of revellers enters dancing 
and singing. 

Act III. Almost the whole act is lost but it is probable that 
Habrotonon follows out her plan. Charisius recognizes the ring 
but has no idea that the child is not Habrotonon’s but his 
own wife’s. He evidently consults a friend in regard to his 
predicament and is advised to keep silent. Charisius keeps the 
child; but Smicrines, believing that the child belongs to 
Habrotonon, takes his daughter back home, although it seems 
she is loath to leave her husband. 

Act IV. Habrotonon enters carrying the child and meets 
Sophrona. Seeing Pamphila on the balcony, Habrotonon recog- 
nizes her as the mother of the child and informs Sophrona that 
Charisius is the father. They enter the house of Smicrines. 
Onesimus recounts how Charisius overheard a conversation be- 
tween Pamphila and her father in which Pamphila defended her 
husband, and how Charisius is beside himself with grief and 
remorse for his treatment of his wife. Charisius enters, giving — 
full play to his feelings. Habrotonon enlightens Charisius in ~ 
regard to the real state of affairs; and he learns that his own 
wife is the mother of his child. | 


MENANDER 135 


Act V. Charisius brings Pamphila back to his house without 
her father’s knowledge. Smicrines is told by Sophrona that 
Pamphila is reconciled with her husband; but the full explana- 
tion for the reconciliation is withheld in order that Onesimus 
may ridicule the old man when he comes pounding at the door 
of Charisius’ house. After worrying the old fellow by expound- 
ing a new theory of Providence, he tells him the truth, and the 
play ends. 

After all allowance has been made for scenes which are con- 
jecturally restored, enough of the original remains to show that 
the plot is complicated and the plot interest, so tenuous in Old 
Comedy as to be almost negligible, has become important. 

Tragedy presents a serious situation which gives rise to a 
problem that must be solved in accordance with the moral laws 
that constitute the ideals of the particular audience before whom 
the tragedy is played. But when the same situation is given 
a humorous treatment, the situation is often falsified so that 
the question which arises from it cannot be treated seriously 
and cannot be answered logically, because the supposed situa- 
tion does not really exist. The problem of the Arbitrants can- 
not be solved because the problem does not really exist. Neither 
the husband nor the wife has really sinned. The problem is 
not what shall the husband do with a wife who has borne an 
illegitimate child. If the situation were really true, a very dif- 
ferent series of scenes would have been selected by the play- 
wright to be enacted on the stage. Many events, which are be- 
hind the scenes and which happen before the play begins, would 
have been on the stage. Charisius would be informed of his 
wife’s sin. We would see their interviews; but since this is 
comedy, the problem really is: how can the truth in regard to 
this situation be brought out? Plots of New Comedy are often 
plots of problem plays; but the problem does not exist. Hence 
we cannot expect a rigorous application of the law of cause and 
effect. 

The complications in New Comedy constantly arise from con- 
cealed identity, mistaken identity, concealed relationships and 


136 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


mistaken relationships; and the slaves are so prone to indulge 
in prevarication that the spectator often does not know what 
is true and what is false. The action begins because of mis- 
takes and misinformation. It develops through more mistakes 
and ends when the truth is found out. It would be very difficult 
to end the situation upon which the Arbditrants is built logically 
and happily, if that situation really existed. Were Charisius 
not the father of Pamphila’s child and Pamphila not the mother, 
the logical ending is tragic. Even in Jon, the whole truth is 
never told to Xuthus who thinks he is the father of Ion. 

In order to keep the comedy from being a tragedy, the situa- 
tion had to be built upon mistakes. In order to keep the action 
developing, more mistakes had to be made, and the more mis- 
takes there were the funnier the play was likely to be. The 
result was a plot far more complicated than the plot of tragedy. 
Not only must all be invented, but all must also be made plain 
to the audience in every detail. The comic playwright had a 
more difficult task than the tragic playwright, because his plot 
was now far more intricate than the plot of tragedy. The audi- 
ence often had to know not only the real situation, which was 
complicated enough, but also what each character thought the 
situation was. When the point of attack in comedy was late in 
the story, the task of the comic playwright was made still more 
difficult than that of a tragic dramatist, because there were more 
events, as a rule, which were supposed to have taken place in 
comedy than in tragedy. Euripides had to explain few events 
in the prologue of Jon in comparison with the events set forth 
in the prologue of the Lady with the Shorn Locks. Antiphanes 
was correct in saying that the construction of tragedy was sim- 
pler than that of comedy of his time. Menander, according to 
Plutarch, considered his comedy practically finished when he had 
completed the scenario and had to write only the dialogue. 


; 
7 
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CHAPTER V 
LATIN COMEDY 


HERE were rudimentary theatrical performances from the 
earliest times in Italy. In 364 B.c., a temporary stage was 
erected, in connection with the Roman Games, upon which dif- 
ferent kinds of buffoons, musicians and singérs of ballads with 
no dialogue or plot performed. In the early days of the Atellan 
farce, appearance upon a public stage was looked upon as an 
occupation fit for only the lowest class of citizens and foreigners. 
In Greece, the poet and the actor had been honored; but in 
Rome, these professions were not respected in the early times. 
Drama cannot prosper in such conditions. Not until Greek art 
attained its full sway over the Roman conquerors of Hellas, did 
drama in Italy become worthy of notice. As in all other forms 
of art the Romans turned to the Greeks, so in drama they ac- 
cepted the highly developed forms of Greek comedy and tragedy. 
In 240 B.c. Livius Andronicus, a Greek captive later freed by 
his master, began to represent in Rome, comedies translated from 
the Greek. At that time Plautus was fourteen years old. When 
his Stichus was produced, the uncultured Roman audience, dull 
to the artistry of fine technique, was probably perfectly content 
with this loosely constructed play with its jerky plot which 
snapped in the middle. The audience doubtlessly took it at 
its face value as a series of more or less unconnected scenes 
each one of which brought a laugh to gaping mouths. 

Stichus is a “contamination” or adaptation of two, possibly 
three, Greek plays. Menander’s Brothers is the source of the 
first part of the play, in which two sisters are anxiously await- 
ing the return of their husbands who have been away for years. 
Their father, Antipho, is trying to persuade them to marry 
again; but the husbands arrive at the end of the second act, and 

137 


138 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the question is solved. A second play furnishes other scenes 
in which a parasite, who tries to fasten himself upon the return- 
ing husbands, is rebuffed. Antipho is reconciled to his sons-in- 
law and asks them to give him a music-girl whom they have 
brought home. The play ends with a scene of revelry and 
feasting carried on by Stichus, his friend, Sagarinus, and their 
mistresses. : 

The play is a mosaic of loosely connected episodes. The 
meagre plot ends in the middle of the play. The last scene 
of banqueting with courtezans is originally from Old Comedy, 
and was retained in later comedy which had no real plot to 
bring it to a solution. It is a mere closing scene, rather than a 
dénouement. The process of contamination will finally cause 
situations in Latin comedy to become very complex. It resulted 
merely in making this play episodic. Between Stichus and 
Epidicus are plots of all grades of complication. 

The audience was aided in following these plots by the fact 
that the persons in the play were stock characters and the plots 
were founded on stock situations. The young spendthrift lover 
employs a tricky lying slave to beg, borrow or steal money from ~ 
someone—often his father—to purchase his mistress from a pro- 
curer or a captain; and the mistress often turns out to be the 
long-lost child of some opulent neighbor. A parasite, who 
spouts monologues on his profession and his constant hunger, is 
employed to do some nefarious business. A cook wanders on 
and off the stage, but has little to do with the plot. A love 
story forms the framework of the action but is kept in the 
background or even behind the scenes. In order to overcome 
obstacles which bestrew the path of true love, plan after plan 
is laid within the hearing of the audience. The lover gen- 
erally stands aside and the slave tries to carry out the plans. Or 
the young lover may unconsciously spoil the plan by some mis- 
take. When some scheme is successful, the play ends or a 
recognition scene may remove the obstacles. The situation may 
be complicated by similarity of appearance (Menechmi), by 


es hs 


A Dt 


ne 


LATIN COMEDY 139 


one character impersonating another (Braggart Captain), or by 
identical names (Bacchides). 

Plautus realized that comedy contained these elements for he 
points out that his Captives departs from the usual form. It 
presents no “perjured pimp or unprincipled courtezan or brag- 
gart captain.” In the epilogue he says: “Spectators, this play 
was composed with due regard to the proprieties. Here you have 
no vicious intrigues, no love affairs, no supposititious child, no 
getting money on false pretenses, no young spark setting a 
wench free without his father’s knowledge.” 

Variety in the plays did not arise by presenting new situa- 
tions, but by varying stock situations with different combinations 
of complications. Inventive power was turned in the direction 
of complication. Plautus was forced by his desire for intricate 


situations to introduce the element of chance into his action. 


As a result, neither his plots nor the development of the action 
will stand the Aristotelian test of the necessary or even 
probable sequence of events. He did not aim to preduce such 
effects. Neither did the Greek dramatists from whom he drew 
his material, nor did Euripides from whom they, in turn, had 
learned much of their art of playwriting. Euripides constructed 
a plot which allowed him to stage tragic scenes. The writers 
of New Comedy constructed a plot which furnished an oppor- 
tunity to stage comic scenes. 

The intricate situation forced Plautus to use every possible 
means such as explanatory prologues, monologues, asides and 
repetitions, in order to have the play understood. He cast illu- 
sion to the four winds. The monologue and the aside were rare 
in Euripidean tragedy but had been employed more frequently 
by Aristophanes. In Plautine comedy, they serve as copious an- 
notations to the dialogue. Sometimes one monologue follows 
another. Or they are practically simultaneous, as two char- 
acters speak on opposite sides of the stage but are. not supposed 
to hear each other. Again, the action may turn on a monologue 
overheard by another character, as in Rudens when Labrax learns 
from Sceparnio’s monologue that his two young women are in 


140 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the temple. Once in a while, Plautus justifies the monologue, as 
in Cistellaria when the old courtezan addressing the audience, 
as characters sometimes do in Old Comedy, says: “I’ve got the 
same fault as most of the women in my profession. Once we get 
properly ballasted, our tongues loosen up at once and we talk 
too much.” She then explains a part of the action of the play. 
In Pseudolus, Plautus avoids repetition by having Pseudolus re- 
fuse to answer a question because the audience knows the 
answer. He says: “This play is being performed for the sake 
of these spectators. They, who were present here, know. Il 
tell you another time.” The intimacy between audience and 
actor had diminished. It had arisen in the rituals underlying 
comedy in which jests were bandied back and forth between 
celebrant and onlooker. In tragedy, the line of demarcation 
between actor and spectator was never overstepped, probably 
because tragedy became solemn and dignified. 

Most Plautine comedies founded upon mistaken identity open 
with a prologue which explains the plot of the play, especially 
the events in the past. The explanatory prologue may also open 
the second act, as in Miles Gloriosus (Braggart Captain). ‘These 
explanatory prologues do not show the technical artistry of the 
Euripidean prologue. Sometimes they are too involved and long- 
winded. But, with their interlarded jests, they put the audience 
into a good humor and a receptive mood. They piqued curiosity. 
Plautus could have dispensed with them as Terence did later. 
Yet they helped the spectators grasp the situation in a theatre 
very different from modern playhouses in which the audience is 
supplied with programs, is quieter, is in a small auditorium, 
and looks at a stage which blazes with light and forms a hypnotic 
centre. : 

The opening scenes of Latin comedy are also frankly ex- 
planatory. Picturesque and striking scenes of exposition, found 
in Aristophanic comedy and Greek tragedy, occur only in Rudens 
which opens with a storm on the seashore. In this case, the 
original play by Diphilus which Plautus adapted was undoubtedly 
influenced by Euripides’ Alcmena, which opened with or con- 


LATIN COMEDY IAI 


tained a similar scene, mentioned in the opening of Rudens. 
Indeed, the whole play is constructed on tragic lines; and, 
although it is comedy in the last analysis, the mood and at- 
mosphere are often serious. 

As the play begins, a storm has been raging all night. A 
ship has been wrecked. Palzestra and Ampelisca are being driven 
ashore. Palzstra enters with her clothes torn and wet. This 
theatrical situation becomes dramatic as we realize that she, 
the slave of a procurer, is unknowingly standing before her 
father’s house in the very place her lover has just quitted. She 
cries out in tragic accents: “My parents, you know not of this, 
that I am thus wretched.” For the moment, the comedy has 
become tragedy. 

As Ampelisca enters and these two young women kneel as 
suppliants before the temple of Venus, whence comes the 
priestess, the scene, the stage setting, the atmosphere, the tone 
and situation are tragic. Suppliants clinging to an altar is a 
recurrent scene in Greek tragedy. An additional touch of tragic 
technique is found at the beginning of the third act when 
Demones, father of Palestra, recounts a dream, which, humorous 
as it may be, is still a device of foreshadowing borrowed from 
tragedy. 

When Labrax, the procurer, enters, he learns by overhearing 
a monologue of Sceparnio that his two young women are in the 
temple. He pursues them within; and Trachalio rushes forth 
from the sacred precinct imploring aid for the two damsels, who, 
attacked by Labrax, are clinging to the statue of Venus. This 
situation is even messengered in a way that recalls the procedure 
of tragedy, and messengering is rare in comedy up to this time. 
Finally the young women rush forth on the stage and kneel at 
the altar of Venus in prayer for protection. ‘The scene has 
humorous touches; but the situation actually arouses our sym- 
pathy and for that reason differs widely from any scene in Old 
Comedy in which tragic scenes were burlesqued. 

Demones and his slaves drag Labrax forth; beholding 
Palestra, Demones is reminded of his long-lost child. Since 


142 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the audience knows that she is his daughter, we have here the 
suspense and sympathy attendant upon the recognition scene in 
tragedy, although this scene becomes boisterously comic when 
Labrax is placed at the altar and is guarded by two slaves ready 
to use the slap stick, if he makes the slightest movement. When 
Plesidippus, the lover of Palestra, drags Labrax to jail, the 
play seems to be ended except that the recognition of Palzstra 
and her father has not taken place. The rest of the action is 
concerned with.the preparation and consummation of the recog- 
nition. As the fourth act begins, Gripus, a fisherman, has found 
in his net a wallet lost by Palestra; but Trachalio, to whom he 
has shown it, disputes his right to keep it and they fight over it. 
Finally Gripus permits the question of ownership to be settled 
by arbitration and Demones is selected as judge. Of course 
the wallet contains tokens proving that Palestra is the daughter 
of Dzemones. Here again, as in Menander’s Arbitrants, is a 
scene drawn from Euripidean tragedy. Thus far the play is 
cast entirely in the tragic mould. The fifth act alone is purely 
comic. Gripus is offered a reward by the procurer if he will 
tell who has the wallet. He indicates Demones as the possessor. 
Demones receives the reward, while Gripus gets nothing. 

In modern times, Terence has been considered the more serious 
of these two Roman playwrights. In this respect the critics have 
accepted the verdict of antiquity. The English and the French 
critics of the eighteenth century justified sentimental comedy on 
the ground that Terence had introduced sentiment and sympa- 
thetic characters into comedy. ‘They failed to see that, while 
these elements are in the story of his plays, the sentimental 
situations and the sympathetic heroine are kept behind the 
scenes. No extant Terentian play is so close to sentimental, 
serious drama as Rudens. But Plautus was not destined to 
furnish the modern theatre with the model of sentimental drama. 
The playwrights of the Renaissance drew from him the situation 
of mistaken identity through similarity of appearance found in 
his Bacchides, Amphitryo and especially in his Menechmi. He 
jokingly called his Amphitryo a tragi-comedy because it con- 


; 


LATIN COMEDY 143 


tained both gods and slaves as characters. The term tragi- 
comedy came to mean in the Renaissance a serious play with a 
happy ending. In this sense of the word his Rudens is more a 
tragi-comedy than any extant play by Terence. 

Both Amphitryo and the Menechmi are less episodic than most 
Latin comedies. Once the hypothesis is admitted, the action 
develops in a series of events, each one of which grows out of 
the other. The order in which the scenes occur in the Menechmi 
cannot be altered without seriously disturbing the mechanism of 
the plot. The Roman audience was evidently beginning to enjoy 
a unified action in comedy. The episodic, loose construction of 
earlier Latin comedy was disappearing. 

The plot of Old Comedy was simple and contained a single 
action. Euripides displayed a tendency to combine two actions. 
New Comedy seems to have carried on this practice, and the 
fabule duplices or double plots are probably of Greek origin. 
Contamination as practiced by Plautus meant combining epi- 
sodes of two or three plays into one play. At first these episodes 
were merely juxtaposed and scarcely reacted upon each other. 
Both the double plot and contamination tended to produce com- 
plex plays. In the Renaissance, complexity of plot was carried 
still further. Thus Shakespeare introduces two pairs of twins in 
the Comedy of Errors, founded on the Menechmi, and adds 
other complications by having the father of the twin brothers 
condemned to death as a foreigner. The comic playwrights of 
the Renaissance also practiced contamination. Hence we have 
the Merchant of Venice with three, perhaps four plots. 

Terence followed the technique of Plautine comedy in general, 
but he introduced certain modifications. The loose construction, 
the slapstick humor disappear almost entirely from Terentian 
comedy. Like Plautus, Terence practiced contamination. He 
constructed complicated stories ; but he handled his plot material 
more deftly. There are no loose ends and the action is easier to 
follow than in many Plautine plays. His complications, how- 
ever, are introduced primarily for purposes of humor and not 
for dramatic effect. He builds a chain of circumstances which 


144 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


will produce a happy ending but not in order to place on the 
stage surprising, emotional scenes. The recognition scene is em- 
ployed to bring the dénouement, not as a sentimental climax. 
Although his plots presuppose many events in the past and 
although he founds them on mistaken and concealed circum- 
stances and identities, he dispenses with the explanatory pro- 
logue used by Plautus. At times, he introduces a protatic char- 
acter—a person who appears only in the protasis or first part of 
a play. Aristophanes and Sophocles had both employed this 
device for the purpose of exposition. A protatic character is 
supposed to be ignorant of the situation, and the explanation 
given him is really directed to the audience. This procedure gives 
a stronger illusion of reality than does the monologue whether 
it be frankly addressed to the audience or considered as think- 
ing aloud on part of the speaker. Terence was making a step 
in the direction of realism and was drawing a clearer line of 
demarcation between actor and audience than had existed hereto- 
fore in comedy. The Roman stage was elevated and the physical 
separation of actor and audience emphasized the mental separa- 
tion. Many modern producers are attempting to bring the stage 
and the actor closer to the auditorium and to the spectator by 


abolishing the physical and mental lines of demarcation. But 


drama in Rome was becoming realistic. 

The objection to the protatic character is that he is not vitally 
connected with the action. When information is given, he has 
little emotional reaction, and hence the spectator is not much 
interested in what is said. Illusion of reality may be preserved, 
but little dramatic effect is produced. Thus in the. Hecyra 
(Mother-in-Law), two protatic characters and a secondary char- 
acter give the exposition. Parmeno explains to Philotis that 
Pamphilus who has been emamored of Bacchis, a courtezan, has 
taken a wife, has become estranged from his former mistress, 
and has transferred his affections to his wife. Donatus says that 
Terence chose this method of exposition in preference to having 
a prologue or a god from a machine explain the situation. The 
scene is more realistic than a Plautine prologue would have 


~ 


LATIN COMEDY 145 


been; but it is far from being dramatic because we hear about 
the emotions and actions of Pamphilus and his young wife in a 
second-hand manner from characters not vitally interested in the 
situation. As a result, we are as calm as the protatic characters. 
Had Pamphilus himself explained his feelings in a monologue, 
there would have been less realism and more dramatic emotion 
in the scene. The exposition in the Eunuch is more artistic be- 
cause Thais explains to the hero, Phedria, why he is kept away 
from his mistress. Thus Terence does not always employ a 
protatic character; but his opening scenes are calm because, 
having dispensed with the explanatory prologue, he uses the first 
act for exposition rather than action. The Latin grammarians 
will tell us, and the critics of the Renaissance will echo them, 
that tragedy has a calm opening and a “turbulent” closing, and 
that the reverse is true of comedy. This statement is not borne 
out by the facts. In certain Greek tragedies the opening scenes 
have an external appearance of majestic calmness, and Aris- 
tophanic comedy often begins turbulently. But Greek tragedy 
sometimes closes calmly; and, with the exception of Rudens, 
Latin comedy begins calmly and becomes more “turbulent” as 
the action develops. 

The position of the point of attack in comedies of Terence and 
the place where it would occur in other forms of drama may 
be illustrated by the argument of Andria. 

Chremes and Phania were brothers, citizens of Athens. (Here 
would come the medieval point of attack.) Chremes, going to 
Asia, leaves his daughter, Pasibula, in the care of his brother, 
Phania, who, afterwards setting sail with Pasibula, is wrecked 
off the Isle of Andros. Escaping with their lives, they are kindly 
received by a native of the island; and Phania soon afterwards 
dies there. The Andrian changes the name of the girl to Gly- 
cerium, and brings her up as his own child, with his daughter, 
Chrysis. On his death, Chrysis and Glycerium sail for Athens 
to seek their fortune there. (Here would be the Elizabethan point 
of attack.) Chrysis being admired by several Athenian youths, 
Pamphilus, the son of Simo, an opulent citizen, chances to see 


146 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Glycerium and falls violently in love with her. She afterwards 
becomes pregnant by him, on which he makes her a promise of 
marriage. (A Bernard Shaw could take the situation at this 
point and brilliantly satirize our customs and ideas concerning 
marriage, family life, the bringing up of children.) In the mean- 
time, Chremes, who is now living at Athens and is ignorant of 
the fate of Pasibula, agrees with Simo, the father of Pamphilus, 
to give Philumena, another daughter, in marriage to Pamphilus. 
While these arrangements are being made Chrysis dies. (The 
point of attack in a sentimental version of the eighteenth century 
might well occur here.) Simo accidentally discovers his son’s 
connection with Glycerium. Chremes, also coming to hear of it, 
declines the match, having no idea that Glycerium is really his 
own daughter. (It is at this point that the Latin play begins.) 

This synopsis also illustrates the large number of chance events 
which had to take place before the plot could exist ; and the long 
arm of chance does not cease to operate throughout the whole 
plot. 

This situation is treated by Terence as a comedy; and it can 
end happily because, in reality, no obstacle exists to keep the 
lovers apart. A catastrophic character appears just in time to 
prove that Glycerium is the daughter of Simo. Of course one 
asks what would happen if the situation really existed and were 
developed logically in accordance with ancient customs; but one 
asks in vain. Authors of New Comedy never allow such situa- 
tions to exist in reality. We shall have to wait for Dumas and 
the nineteenth century before such a problem is solved on the 
stage; and then a pistol shot will put an end to the tragedy. 
Perhaps in the twentieth century the young couple would marry 
and go to seek a lovers’ paradise in Australia or the Rocky 
Mountains where we believe that indiscreet innocence is shel- - 
tered from the heavy hand of conventionality. 

Terence uses much plot material. The Mother-in-Law is his 
only extant play which does not contain a double plot. He 
introduces two pairs of lovers. Terentian comedy develops more 
smoothly and more convincingly than does the usual Plautine 


LATIN COMEDY : 147 


play in which the action may be held up at any moment for 
purposes of humor. ‘Terence reveals his action and develops 
his story carefully, yet the action in his plays has a tendency to 
go behind the scenes as was the case in Euripidean tragedy. A 
note by Donatus on line 825 of the Mother-in-Law says that the 
incident narrated by Bacchis was represented in the original 
Greek play. It probably means the recognition of the ring by 
Myrrhina was enacted and not the event mentioned in line 825 
which happened months before the usual point of attack in 
comedy. In either case, the action has gone behind the scenes 
in Terence’s play. 

In Plautirie comedy, the action is generally on the stage, as in 
Aristophanic comedy, unless, like Rudens, the play is influenced 
by tragic technique. Plautus did not hesitate to represent on the 
stage any event which would naturally take place indoors and 
hence behind the scenes. The banquet in the Bacchides and 
women at their toilet are placed by Plautus in the street with 
utter disregard for realism. He was willing to sacrifice veri- 
similitude—the bogey of neo-classicists—in order to present all 
Situations directly to the spectators. Such scenes as that in 
the Braggart Captain, in which the slave looking through the 
skylight beholds the lovers caressing each other, are narrated, 
because they cannot be represented out-of-doors; but the action 
in Plautine comedy is often on the stage, even at the expense 
of realism. 

In the plays of Terence, there are no banquets or reclining 
courtezans on the stage. Undoubtedly a feeling for realism began 
to preclude the stretching of stage conventions to such a point 
as to have these scenes on the street. Tragedy dealt with life 
of the past. Because a Clytemnestra or an Gidipus was far away 
in time, it was not so strange to see them always in the open 
air. Old Comedy was anything but realistic. Fantasy was its 
very soul. New Comedy, however, dealt with the present and 
with everyday life. Inevitably it would become more and 
more realistic. The less realistic Plautine comedy perhaps rep- 
resents more of the spirit of comedy of the fourth century when 


148 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


some of the easy conventions and fantasy of Old Comedy re- 
mained to smooth out the path of the dramatist. 

The fact that Terence observes more carefully the conven- 
tionalities of the out-door setting may account, in part, for his 
tendency to place certain important situations behind the scenes ; 
and it may have influenced his treatment of the réle of heroine. 

Euripides had developed the rédle of heroine and had even in- 
troduced the guiltless woman in his Helen and in Alcestis. In 
New Comedy the innocent heroine, although very important in 
the plot, appears on the stage with increasing infrequency, al- 
though the courtezan appears even more than she did in Aris- 
tophanic comedy. In Plautus, the respectable wife and the 
innocent maiden are on the stage far more than in Terence, 
although Plautus has a mute heroine in Pseudolus, and although 
he introduces no feminine characters either in the Captives or 
in Trinummus. In Terence’s Andria, Pamphila appears once, but 
does not speak; and the recognition of Pamphila by her brother 
takes place behind the scenes. In the Brothers, the Mother-in- 
Law and Phormio, the heroines are kept within doors. Only in 
the Self-Tormentor is there a scene between an innocent heroine 
and her lover, in spite of the fact that obstacles in the path of 
lovers form the basis of the plots of the plays. The fragments 
of Menander’s comedies contain few scenes in which the heroine 
figures on the stage. The evidence furnished by extant plays of 
Terence shows that he almost entirely banished from view this 
character who plays such an important part in his story, but who 
must wait until more modern times to enact her réle on the 
stage. 

Evidence that the infrequent appearance of the respectable 
woman was partially due to the out-door setting is furnished by 
Stobzeus who. quotes the following passage from Menander. A 
husband is upbraiding his wife who has appeared at the door. 
“Take care. You are crossing the boundaries of a married 
woman, when you come forth from the interior court, because 
the threshold of this court is looked upon as the limit of the 


LATIN COMEDY 149 


house for an honest woman; but to come out-of-doors and run 
into the street, to cry out, that is the impudence of a dog.” 

Other considerations, however, tended to keep the heroine off 
the stage. Terence did not aim to produce romantic or senti- 
mental comedy. The love story was a comic complication, not 
a problem to be treated for its own interest. The love of Antig- 
one and Hemon in Antigone is a tragic complication but not 
the subject of the play. The ancients did not produce either a 
Romeo and Juliet or an As You Like It because they did not 
care for love scenes. Love interest was a means not an end in 
classical drama. ‘The lover easily becomes a comic character, 
especially when he is unsuccessful; but an innocent or wronged 
maiden is not very funny and never has been a satisfactory 
source of comic effect. Had Terence emphasized this role, his 
plays would have been romantic and more serious. These shy 
heroines arouse sympathy in us moderns. We regret their almost 
continuous absence; but we are thinking of them in terms of 
the modern theatre in which love plays a great part on the stage. 
The ancients were content to have the heroines of comedy out 
of sight and wasted no sympathy on them. Latin comedy is more 
humorous because the tricky slaves, parasites, courtezans and 
obstructive old fathers hold the stage than it would have been 
had the sympathetic heroine been the medium for developing 
the action and guiding the emotions of the audience. 

The out-door setting and the absence of the heroine make 
these plays very different from what they would be if the same 
stories were dramatized by modern playwrights. The principal 
characters in the love story become secondary characters in the 
play. The action is carried on by slaves, parasites, courtezans, 
old men. ‘The chief characters are constantly paired off in 
scenes with secondary characters. The recognition scene had 
been a dramatic event in tragedy. Now it has become unim- 
portant. Either it is narrated, as in the Eunuch and the Mother- 
in-Law, or is staged between the wrong characters as in Andria, 
for Pasibula is not on the stage when Chremes discovers she is 
his long-lost daughter. The dramatic recognition has become a 


I50 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


mere perfunctory means of bringing about a happy ending. 
It lacks even a sentimental interest when treated thus. 

The late point of attack, the street-scene, and the absence of 
the heroine cause the plot to develop through secondary char- 
acters and in a second-hand manner. In comparison with modern 
plays, Terentian comedy seems to reach the spectator indirectly. 
Even comic incidents are sometimes narrated. 

If the plays of Terence were produced on a revolving stage 
with the action taking place in the interiors as well as in the 
street, and if the stage were revolved halfway, we would wit- 
ness the scenes which a modern dramatist would naturally place 
before our eyes; and we would only hear about the scenes which 
Terence placed before the Roman audience. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE ORIGIN OF MEDIEVAL DRAMA. FRENCH 
MEDIEVAL DRAMA 


I 


: oy the downfall of the Roman Empire the theatre came crash- 
q ing to the ground. The great shows and spectacles of the 
period of decadence in Rome and in Byzantium passed into ob- 
livion and nothing of them remained upon which to build. Only 
a faint spark of drama seems to have remained—kept alive 
by the mimes and /istriones ; and even these wandering mounte- 
banks, ostracized and anathematized by the church fathers, have 
been held by certain scholars to have been merely jugglers, rope- 
walkers and acrobats. But if the desire to be someone else is 
natural, although impossible to fulfill, the desire to impersonate 
someone else is just as natural, and so easily fulfilled that peo- 
ples of all degrees of intelligence and civilization have indulged 
this human desire and created some sort of drama. Some form 
of worship of a higher power always exists among every race 
of human beings; and every ritual contains the germ of drama. 

It is difficult to understand why the Church was so hostile to 
the mime if it consisted only of rope-walking and dances in the 
eighth and ninth centuries when we last hear of it before the 
rise of liturgical drama. The dramatic mime must have kept 
the spark of drama alive until it began to appear in church serv- 
ices. In 836, Agobert mentions the mime and in the tenth cen- 
tury the primitive drama of the adoration of the shepherds was 
being produced. Indeed, a late ninth or early tenth century 
manuscript of St. Gall preserves the earliest extant tropes in- 
terpolated into the Easter service. That a new kind of drama 
sprang from the Christian ritual is undoubted; but that there 
was a period in the history of Europe in the ninth and early 

I51I 


152 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


tenth century when there was no mimetic representation of 
events or impersonation of characters is unbelievable in spite of 
the fact that these plays or shows of that period have all disap- 
peared. 

In a ritual of Gallican origin from the ninth century and used 
at the dedication of a church is found mimetic action and im- 
personation. Mr. Chambers describes the ritual as follows: “The 
bishop and his procession approach the closed doors of the church 
from without, but one of the clergy as if hiding (quasi latens) 
is placed inside. Three blows with a staff are given on the doors 
and the anthem is raised, Tollite portas, principes, vestras et 
elevamini, porte eternales, et introibit Rex glorie. From within 
comes the question, Quis est iste Rex glorie? and the reply is 
given: Dominus virtutum ipse est Rex glorie. Then the doors 
are opened, and as the procession sweeps through, he who was 
concealed within slips out (quasi fugiens) to join the train. It 
is the dramatic expulsion of the spirit of evil” (The Medieval 
Stage, Vol. II, p. 4). Here is a play; and the spirit of evil is 
the character which will become the great antagonist or villain 
of medieval drama. | 

Just as serious Greek tragedy developed from the ritual per- 
formed in honor of the dead hero or god, so the tragic drama 
of the Middle Ages developed from the ritual performed in Holy 
Week in honor of the death and resurrection of Christ. The 
service readily lends itself to dramatic reading under the emo- 
tional exaltation of the moment. It became a practice to have 
the words of Christ chanted in a sweet low tone, the speeches of 
Judas and Pilate in a shrill treble tone, while the narrative ver- 
sion was in a tenor voice without much accentuation. 

Antiphonal song had been introduced into the church service 
in the early part of the fourth century. The different parts of 
the ritual were rendered by half-choirs or a cantor answered by 
the whole choir. Real dialogue, however, arose from the prac- 
tice of inserting lines, known as tropes, in certain portions of the 
mass. A manuscript of St. Gall contains the following tropes 
introduced into the Easter service about the year 900. Angels 


THE ORIGIN OF MEDIEVAL DRAMA 153 


sing to persons or a choir representing for the moment the woman 
at the tomb of Christ: 


Whom seek ye in the tomb, O Christians? 


The answer comes: 


Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified, O Heavenly Beings. 


To this the angelic voices reply: 


He is not here; he has risen as he foretold. 
Go and announce that he has risen from the tomb. 


The development of mimetic action, the introduction of cos- 
tume and properties are illustrated by the following passage 
from the Concordia Regularis drawn up by Ethelwold, Bishop 
of Winchester, in the tenth century. This ritual is of English 
origin but was founded upon customs in vogue in continental 
monasteries. 

“While the third lesson is being chanted, let four brethren 
vest themselves. Let one of these, vested in an alb, enter as 
though to take part in the service, and let him approach the 
sepulchre without attracting attention and sit there quietly with 
a palm in his hand.” 

This brother is to play the part of the angel. The sepulchre 
is represented by the altar. Then the unconscious dramatist, 
ultra-modern in his careful stage directions, describes how the 
brothers who are to play the rdles of the three Marys shall act. 


While the third respond is chanted, let the remaining three follow 
and let them all, vested in copes, bearing in their hands thuribles 
with incense, and stepping delicately as those who seek something, 
approach the sepulchre. These things are done in imitation of the 
angel sitting in the monument, and the women with spices coming 
to anoint the body of Jesus. When therefore he who sits there 
beholds the three approaching him like folk lost and seeking some- 
thing, let him begin in a dulcet voice of medium pitch to sing Quem 
queritis. And when he has sung it to the end, let the three reply 


154 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


in unison, Jhesu Nazarenum. So he, Non est hic, surrexit sicut 
predixerat. Ite, nuntiate quia surrexit a mortuis. At the word 
of bidding let those three turn to the choir and say, Alleluia! 
resurrexit Dominus. This said, let the one still sitting there and 
as if recalling them, say the anthem, Venite et videte locum. And 
saying this, let him rise and lift the veil, and show them the place 
bare of the cross, but only the cloths laid there in which the cross 
was wrapped. And when they have seen this, let them set down the 
thuribles which they bare in that same sepulchre, and take the 
cloth, and hold it up in the face of the clergy, and as if to demon- 
strate that the Lord has risen and is no longer wrapped therein, let 
them sing the anthem, Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro, and lay the 
cloth upon the altar. When the anthem is done, let the prior, sharing 
in their gladness at the triumph of our King, in that, having van- 
quished death, He rose again, begin the hymn, Te Deum laudamus. 
And this begun, all the bells chime out together (The Medieval 
Stage, Vol. I, p. 14). 


The Greek ritual in honor of a dead hero was probably similar 
in tone and construction. Here we have a single voice answered 
by a chorus of three. In the Greek ritual a single leader was 
answered by a chorus of fifty. In order to turn this ritual into 
a miniature Greek tragedy one would only have to introduce 
a narrative description of the crucifixion. 

Another scene, dramatized at Augsburg about 1100, is the visit 
of Peter and John to the tomb. They find the sepulchre empty 
and announce the resurrection. | | 

The appearance of Christ as a gardener to Mary Magdalene 
is portrayed in the following liturgical drama of the thirteenth 
century. As in Greek tragedy, the spirit of the hero appeared 
before the live hero was portrayed. 


Mary 
My heart burns with the desire to behold my Lord. I seek and 
find not where they have placed Him. 

In the meantime, let someone come in the likeness of a GARDENER 
and standing at the head of the sepulchre, let him say: 
Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? 


eae Se 


— — 


a oe 


——_— ee ee ee ee eee 


q 
| 


THE ORIGIN OF MEDIEVAL DRAMA 155 


Mary 
Master, if thou hast taken Him away, tell me where thou hast 
placed him and I will carry Him away. 

HE 
Mary. 

Mary (throwing herself at His feet) 
Rabboni. 

HE (drawing back from her as if avoiding her touch) 
Touch me not, for I have not yet risen to my father and your 
father, my Lord and your Lord. (Thus let the GARDENER with- 
draw.) 

Mary (turning to the people) 
Congratulate me, all ye who cherish the Lord because He whom 
I was seeking appeared to me while I was .weeping at the 
sepulchre. I have seen my Lord. Halleluia. 


The serious plays of the Middle Ages developed by a steady 
process of adding scenes to such dramatized rituals. At first 
tropes were introduced. These tropes were given a dramatic 
background and setting and were delivered by monks or priests 
impersonating the different characters. Then as different scenes 
were added, the dramatized ritual became liturgical drama en- 
tirely detached from the Introit. While this phenomenon of 
accretion cannot be traced with absolute chronological exactness 
because the manuscripts of the extant plays date from different 
centuries, yet we shall probably not go far wrong in assuming 
that one of the next stages in the development of this episode 
is exemplified in the Holy Women at the Tomb preserved in a 
manuscript of the twelfth century. The point of attack has been 
pushed back so as to include a song of lamentation sung in al- 
ternate verses by the three Marys before they reach the tomb. 
In the Three Marys the women buy oil of a merchant as they 
go to the Holy Sepulchre; and in this play Christ himself ap- 
pears to Mary Magdalene. In the Resurrection of the twelfth 
century the point of attack has gone back still farther. The 
librettist or dramatist wishes to prove the fact that Christ rose 
from the dead, so he begins his play by having Pilate send sol- 


156 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


diers to guard the tomb. An angel strikes them down with a 
thunderbolt. The Marys enter and buy oil of the merchant. 
They find the tomb empty and the angel announces that Christ 
has risen. The soldiers report to Pilate what has happened. 
Mary Magdalene gives her lamentation. Christ appears to her. 
The other Marys come. Christ appears to the disciples. 
Thomas doubts. The other disciples behold the empty tomb and 
the chorus sing Te Deum laudamus. 

The similarity of early Christian plays to early Greek drama 
again is striking. The lamentation for the dead hero or god, 
the spirit and tone of the drama, the point of attack close to 
the dénouement, the lack of conflict between hero and villain, 
the hero himself appearing only twice, all recall the Greek 
tragedy. At the end, there is a song of praise, almost joyous, 
which corresponds to the note of future peace sounded at the 
end of so many Greek plays. There is this difference: Chris- 
tianity has made death a triumphant passage into glory, whereas 
with the Greeks death was the solemn fulfilment of a decree 
of Fate. 

The differences between the two forms of tragedy are external. 
The Greeks were greater artists so far as form is concerned; and 
they soon fixed the mould into which their plays would be cast. 
The drama of the Middle Ages was to know no limits or bounds. 
It poured forth like a flood from the pen of the dramatist. The 
point of attack never became fixed. The “stage” itself grew to 
vast dimensions. The salutary Greek maxim “Nothing too much” 
was unknown to these child-like people who preferred exaggera- 
tion and vastness to restraint in their works of art. 

Another influence, no less potent, which enlarged the frame- 
work of the medieval drama to huge proportions, sprang from 
the fact that Christianity not only celebrated the death and resur- 
rection of its God but also his birth. A second series of scenes 
arose in connection with the ritual honoring the birth of Christ, 
and were given dramatic representation at the same time that 
the ritual concerning the Resurrection was developing into mate- 
rial for drama. The Christian ritual which was dramatized 


OL  — ————— a 


THE ORIGIN OF MEDIEVAL DRAMA 157 


finally included the whole life of the hero. The Greek ritual 
which influenced early tragedy was in honor merely of the dead 
hero and was retrospective. The Christian ritual was not only 
prospective, but also the point of attack in the ritual was placed 
far away from the dénouement. Hence the same conditions pre- 
vailed in the drama which developed from these services at 
Christmas and in Holy Week. 

At first there were these two groups of liturgical dramas: the 
one containing the scenes which grouped themselves about the 
Resurrection ; the other embracing scenes related to the Nativity, 
such as the Annunciation, the Three Kings, and the Massacre of 
the Innocents. As years went on, the spoken drama developed 
and ceased to be intimately connected with the ritual. The point 
of attack in the Resurrection group was placed far enough back 
to include the Passion. This episode was one of the last to be 
portrayed. The dénouement included the Last Judgment. 
Scenes were added to the Nativity group and the events leading 
up to the Passion were finally dramatized. The point of attack 
in the Nativity plays went back to a scene in Heaven in which 
God decides to send his Son to earth as the Savior. 

Thus plays of stupendous length, taking many days to per- 
form, grew out of the practice of juxtaposing the two groups of 
scenes, of making additions of single scenes and of lengthening 
them. Versions were enlarged by learned clerks in different 
towns. This fact explains the similarity of many mystery plays. 

The Maestricht Passion, of French origin and produced before 
1350, contains the following scenes in a fragment of about fifteen 
hundred lines: Creation and Fall of the Angels; Creation and 
Fall of Man; Debate of Justice and Pity; Prophecies of the 
Birth of Christ; Annunciation; Nativity; Three Kings and 
Herod; Massacre of the Innocents; Flight into Egypt; Jesus in 
the Temple; Baptism; Temptation; Calling of Peter and An- 
drew; Wedding at Cana; Jesus at the House of Simon; Resur- 
rection of Lazarus; Entrance into Jerusalem; Expulsion of the 
Money Lenders; Jesus at the House of Martha; Council of the 


158 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Synagogue; Betrayal; Garden of Olives; Arrival of Judas and 
the Soldiers. 

The action fairly gallops. In later Passion Plays begins the 
process of addition of new episodes drawn from apocryphal 
sources; likewise, episodes already dramatized are lengthened. 
Thus Michel’s Passion is an amplification of two journées or 
long acts of Greban’s Passion. The “very eloquent and scientific 
doctor, Master Jehan Michel,” adds but never cuts. He intro- 
duces many secondary scenes which make the action drag through 
thousands upon thousands of additional lines. Eloquent and 
scientific doctors should not write plays. Medieval drama be- 
gan with three or four lines and attained epic proportions. The 
French Mystery of the Old Testament contains over fifty thou- 
sand lines. 

The plays were built piecemeal as was the medieval cathedral. 
Different architects were employed and each generation added 
something to the cathedral: altar, transept, nave, chapel, tower. 
The edifice was never finished. It could always be embroidered 
with sacred, comic, grotesque or realistic scenes in stone or glass. 
The medieval cathedral has not the formal unity of a Greek tem- 
ple. Yet it is an architectural unit. At times the eye prefers to 
dwell upon a chapel or a tower or a grotesque carving. So the 
mystery cycles have not the simple, formal unity of Greek 
tragedy. Pathetic episodes, such as Abraham and Isaac in the 
Brome Play, or the grotesque scenes between Noah and his wife, 
or the comic Second Shepherds’ Play of the Towneley cycle offer 
the greatest delight to the modern spectator. Greek tragedy and 
architecture are unified in tone. The mystery cycle and the 
cathedral run the scale of all human emotions from the tragic 
and pathetic to the grotesque and comic. It is thus that Shake- 
speare was to build his plays, divided into scenes of great variety. 

There is a striking similarity between the spirit and construc- 
tion of Greek tragedy and plays of the Resurrection group. The 
Nativity plays are constructed on different lines. They are not 
tragic but joyous. Thus the whole medieval play was not en- 
tirely:serious. There was a mixture of tone. The total effect 


THE ORIGIN OF MEDIEVAL DRAMA 159 


was not tragic in a depressing sense, because even the death of 
Christ in the Passion Play or of a hero in a Miracle Play was 
followed by a triumphant apotheosis. When these groups had 
coalesced, the point of attack was placed even before the birth 
of the hero; and the play presented his birth, life, death and 
ascension into eternal life. In 1195 the Creation of the World 
and the Fall of Lucifer was given at Regensburg. In this play, 
the medieval point of attack at the beginning of the story is per- 
fectly exemplified. It can recede no further from the dénoue- 
ment. The retrospection, so effectively employed in Greek drama, 
was not only unnecessary but almost impossible in medieval 
drama. All the action is on the stage. It never occurred to the 
medieval playwright to have events in his story narrated. In 
the rare cases in which a messenger is introduced, he almost in- 
variably reports incidents which have already been enacted before 
the spectators but which one of the characters is not supposed 
to know. The medieval dramatist therefore knew no rule or 
convention or practice of having the action represented as hap- 
pening in one place or during a short period of time or even of 
limiting the length of his play. 

The aim of medieval drama was primarily didactic. As is 
stated in the preface to the Concordia Regularis, the priests had 
instituted this custom of giving visual representations of certain 
ceremonies in order to “fortify unlearned people in their faith.” 
The mimetic rituals and the medieval drama performed a func- 
tion similar to that of the motion picture in visual education in 
modern schools. The drama began to flourish when many wor- 
shippers were unable to understand the service in Latin. Nat- 
urally the element of spectacle was important in such a drama 
and the action was kept before the eyes of the audience. Greek 
tragedy aroused emotions by representing emotional reactions 
of characters to events on or off the stage. That was its artistic 
aim and even its moral justification according to Aristotle. Me- 
dieval sacred drama taught a moral lesson by telling a story on 
the stage. It had relatively little artistic aim, for its moral 
justification weighed too heavily on its framework. 


160 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The system of simultaneous stage decoration was also a strong. 
_ factor in the development of the technique of medieval drama. 
The Greek ritual was performed about the tomb of the dead 
hero; and, since it was a retrospective narrative of his life, the 
practice and convention of not changing the scene easily grew 
up. The tomb was the first “scenery” in Greek tragedy and it 
represented nothing but just what it was. Of course, the Greek - 
stage finally had other scenery; but there was nothing in the 
primitive ritual to establish the custom of changing the scene. 

In the ritual underlying medieval tragedy, the altar of a church 
was the first scenery; and it became scenery when it began to 
represent something other than itself, such as the Holy Sepulchre 
in the Concordia Regularis or the manger in the Three Kings. 
As other episodes were added to these. plays, more scenery had 
to be devised. Thus in the Massacre of the Innocents, there is 
not only a stable but also Herod is seated on a throne. Chairs 
are employed in the Conversion of Saint Paul to represent Jeru- 
salem and Damascus. A boy placed upon the pulpit represented 
an angel; and the choir in the lofts was supposed to be in the 
sky. When Heaven came to be represented in later years, it 
was placed on a level above the stage. Thus the ritual from 
which these plays developed demanded many scenes. Since dif- 
ferent parts of the church were used to represent these scenes, 
the practice of setting all scenery on the stage grew up and was 
followed throughout the Middle Ages. In France the custom 
lasted well into the seventeenth century. | 

Since there was no convention of limit of time either of the 
action or of the actual representation itself, the dramatist was 
able to represent any scene at any moment. There was practi- 
cally no such place as “behind the scenes.” ‘The material condi- 
tions of the medieval theatre were partially responsible for the 
loose construction of medieval drama. The stage setting, the 
lack of any fixed point of attack or dénouement, and the aim to 
present a visual lesson naturally led the playwright to represent 
everything in the story upon which his plot was founded. He 
followed his source closely. He began his play where the story 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 161 


began. He had everything enacted in temporal order. But if the 
art of selection, of compression, of the elimination of the non- 
essential was rarely practiced by the medieval playwright, at 
least he kept the action on the stage, where it generally belongs. 
He did represent non-essential scenes, but he never omitted 
an obligatory scene. 

It has been said that the spectator in the Green theatre was in 
an “Olympic coign of vantage”; but this is truer of the spectator 
in the medieval theatre. His view extended from the beginning 
of time to the present and could rest upon any spot on Earth, in 
Heaven or Hell. Not only was there simultaneous scenery but 
simultaneous action. ‘Those who have seen the simultaneous 
setting and action in the last act of Aida can gain some impres- 
sion of the emotions of the medieval audience when it beheld 
simultaneously the sufferings of tortured souls in Hell and the 
bliss of the saved souls in Heaven. Such dramatic contrast 
was a powerful factor in those bygone ages which can hardly be 
reproduced today. There is little wonder that the audience, 
which believed in the unbearably grim reality of Hell and the 
incomprehensibly beautiful reality of Heaven, would sit through 
prolix dialogue for days in order to behold this picture of the 
end of mortal life and the beginning of an immortality of torture, 
or of peace that passes understanding. 

Yet medieval drama as a whole is formless and inartistic 
because the selective faculty of the artist, so essential to any 
dramatist, was never developed by the medieval playwright. He 
was content to follow his narrative source, or, if he were re- 
writing a play, to add, enlarge upon and emphasize certain epi- 
sodes. Often these scenes were not vitally important and were 
given undue importance and length. For example, the scene of 
the forging of the nails for the crucifixion, often depicted in the 
fine arts, was given prominence in the Passion Plays. It is a 
scene of realism and grim cynicism, but it is generally far too 
long and not vital to the action. The trial scene in Heaven at 
the beginning of these plays finally became a long-winded debate. 
The rdle of the mother of Christ was given adequate treatment 


162 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


for the first time in the Semur Passion. These theologians, try- 
ing to be dramatists, were blind to the tragic emotion in this 
role. Not until 1485 did Michel produce a profoundly touching 
scene in his Passion between Christ and his mother. 

The Sainte Geneviéve Passion illustrates the utter lack of pro- 
portion which became such a great fault in later plays and which 
was so harmful to artistic construction. The réle of Christ is 
quite overshadowed by secondary roles. He is kept silent. Real- 
ism drives out tragedy, for the scenes in which the ruffians are 
preparing to capture Jesus and in which they seize him are 
greatly prolonged in order to introduce realistic details, such 
as Judas advising the thugs to take along lanterns. In the scene 
of the Crucifixion, emphasis is placed again on the secondary 
roles of the ruffians, who nail Christ to the cross, instead of on 
the tragic sufferings of the hero. The torture scenes are por- 
trayed with minute detail. Throughout many medieval plays 
realistic scenes of fishing, building, etc., are staged in a fashion 
which delights the investigator of everyday life in the Middle 
Ages but which is undramatic, so far as modern taste is con- 
cerned. 

These playwrights were realists such as the realists of the nine- 
teenth century never dreamed of being. Their unconscious 
though literal interpretation of the idea that everything which is 
in nature is in art is responsible for the introduction or develop- 
ment in detail of many scenes which are not in the narrative 
source. They showed no desire to suppress unnecessary, com- 
monplace details and much of their art consisted in making a 
literal transcript of life. In the episode of the Three Kings in the 
Sainte Geneviéve Passion, the Kings feel the need of sleep and lie 
down on the stage. Then Gabriel appears and warns them not 
to return through Herod’s realm. When the author of the Arras 
Passion reaches this scene he cannot imagine being so unrealistic 
as to allow Kings to sleep out-of-doors. Therefore he has them 
send a servant to engage rooms in advance at an inn. When the 
Kings arrive, supper is served and then they retire for the night. 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 163 


Thus it is in life. Thus it is mot in drama. As a result of this 
striving for realism, incidents entirely unnecessary so far as the 
dramatic action is concerned are constantly represented in mi- 
nute detail. Every human action known to medieval man was 
enacted at one time or another on the stage. In comparison 
with the drama of the Middle Ages the modern plays of the 
Grand-Guignol type are suitable entertainment for puritans suf- 
fering from nervous prostration. Thrills, horrors, indecency, 
the commonplace, the comic, all are intermingled with the great 
theme of life, its meaning, its struggle, its temptations, and the 
judgment of God. The soul of a people is revealed in the way it 
constructs its plays. 

In the development of medieval drama from the tenth century 
to the Renaissance, it was perhaps inevitable that one play would 
be produced which fulfills many of the conditions of what we 
believe dramatic art should be. This play is entitled Adam 
(1147-1174). It was written in French by an Anglo-Norman in 
England. The first episode, a complete drama in itself, requires 
no indulgence on the part of a modern theatre-goer. If modern 
censorship did not forbid the representation of God on the stage, 
the play could hold an audience on the modern stage. 

The stage is the parvis of a cathedral. At one end of the stage 
are shown the gates of Hell. Earthly Paradise is filled with 
fruits and flowers. Adam is clad in a red robe and Eve is dressed 
in white. The author anticipates the request of many a modern 
playwright when he begs the actors to make gestures befitting 
what they say and to speak deliberately. They are not to add 
or leave out a syllable of the lines and are to speak them in the 
order in which they come. Also whoever speaks the word “Para- 
dise” is to look at the scene and point to it. “Jn the beginning 
God created Heaven and Earth’ is read. A choir sings an anthem 
dae the play begins with God addressing Adam: 


Gop 
I have formed thee 
From clay of the earth. 


164 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


ADAM 
I know it well. 
Gop 
I have given thee a living soul, 
So have I formed thee in my semblance, 
In my image have I made thee of earth, 
Thou must never strive against me. 
ADAM 
So I shall not do, but I shall trust thee, 
I shall obey my creator. 


The point of attack is well placed. When mechanical spec- 
tacle enters medieval drama, such plays will show the actual 
creation of the world; but it is often the case that more primi- 
tive drama is better constructed than highly developed forms, 
because it is likely to be free from an overemphasis of the purely 
spectacular element, the literary and poetical element. 

There is correct foreshadowing with the exposition. It is a 
question of obeying the commands of God. He bids Adam to 
love his wife, and Eve to hold Adam dear. Paradise is theirs 
so long as they do not eat the forbidden fruit. Then God with- 
draws into the church; and the action begins with a scene which 
is remarkable for psychology and dramatic effect. 

The devils rush forth from Hell and in pantomime show the 
forbidden fruit to Eve “pursuasively that she may eat.” Then 
the Devil addresses Adam, asking if all is well with him, insinuat- 
ing that things could be better and arousing his curiosity. But 
Adam fears his Creator. He will not transgress his law. He 


will not touch the fruit. There is a pause while the Devil with- 


draws, and, with his companions, rushes through the audience, 
arousing laughter tempered by shivers. He returns to the temp- 
tation “merry and rejoicing.” But Adam resists him. “With 
a sad and downcast expression,” the Devil leaves Adam. After 
holding a council in pantomime with other devils at the gates of 


Hell, he comes to Eve “with a flattering expression.” He gains 


her promise to keep a secret. 


, 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 165 


DEVIL 
Thou hast been in a good school. 
I have seen Adam, but he is very unreasonable. 
EVE 
He is a little hard. 
DEVIL 
He will be mild; 
He is harder than hell. 
EVE 
He is very noble-minded. 
DEVIL 
But he is very servile. 
If he will not take care of himself, 
Let him at least take care of thee. 
Thou art a delicate. and tender thing, 
And thou art fresher than the rose; 
Thou art whiter than crystal, 
Than snow which falls on ice in the valley; 
The creator has made a bad match, 
Thou art too tender and he too hard; 
And yet thou art wiser. 


Making sure that Adam does not overhear them, he explains 
that the fruit that God has given is worthless. The forbidden 
fruit has great virtue. It is the means of life, of power, of 
sovereignty, of knowledge. Its flavor is celestial. It is fitting 
for Eve, with her beautiful face and body, to be queen of the 
world. Thus he continues with promises and flattery to sow 
temptation in the woman’s soul. She goes to Adam who warns 
her and upbraids her for listening to the Devil. In a scene in 
which no word is spoken, a serpent ascends a tree. Eve seems 
to listen to its council. At last she takes the fruit and hands it 
to Adam. The man hesitates. Eve tastes it and cries out in 
ecstasy : 


Now my eyes are so clear-seeing 
IT am like God the Almighty; 


166 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Whatever has been and whatever is to be 
I know fully. ... 


Adam yields to her command to eat; he recognizes his sin; he 
begins his lamentation: ‘Alas sinful one, what have I done.” 

These people are not one-sided figures which have stepped 
down from stained glass windows. The man, the woman and 
the tempter are real characters in this scene of suspense with 
hope and fear prevailing alternately. In the climax of this 
scene, the medieval audience beheld enacted the cause of human 
misery, the beginning of sin in the world. 

The whole conception of this scene; the quiet, peaceful open- 
ing; the foreshadowing; the gradual rise of the action so artisti- 
cally shaded in ever-increasing intensity of interest and emotion; 
the lyricism, not overshadowing the action and giving a touch 
of beauty; the insight into human nature; the tragic climax in 
which the woman is exalted by her sin and the man is crushed; 
the tenseness and power of the dialogue in the original language 
make this play worthy of production on any stage. There is 
that artistic restraint in its beauty and dramatic power that 
shows the touch of the real dramatist, whose name is lost to us. 
Medieval drama offering such scenes holds out fair hopes. But 
the promise of future beauty in dramatic art was not fulfilled, 
so far as we know from extant plays. 

The first episode ends with the dramatic appearance of God 
before the sinners and with his curse for their crime. They are 
expelled from Paradise by the angel with the flaming sword. 
They cultivate the ground and sow it, often turning towards the 
lost Paradise with tears and beating their breasts. Weeds spring 
up and the sinners pour forth their lamentation. At last in a 
scene of pantomime the devils come and chain them and lead 
them to Hell whence issues smoke, an infernal din, and cries 
of demoniac joy. 

The second episode represents the murder of Abel. It moves - 
swiftly but not hurriedly. While it does not contain the keen 
psychology of the scene of the temptation, the situation is han- 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 167 


dled in a dramatic manner with dialogue which goes straight to 
the point. Pantomime again plays a large part in unfolding the 
action. 

The last episode is a series of prophecies of the coming of a 
redeemer. As each prophet finishes, he is led away to Hell by 
the devils. Contrary to the general rule, this dramatist has prac- 
ticed the art of selection of scenes to be represented. He did 
not wish to tell a story or to solve a problem. He represents 
the idea of the Fall of Man and the first shedding of blood; and 
he foreshadows the Redemption. There is no unity of action in 
the strict sense of the word, such as is found in Greek tragedy. 
The episodes do not follow each other in causal relation; but 
to the medieval mind the unity consisted in the idea of the Fall 
and the Redemption. The unity is not dramatic, but philosophic 
and religious. The first two scenes taken by themselves are not 
only the stuff that dramas are made of, but also they are dramatic 
and artistic. It is very doubtful, however, that a playwright of 
the twelfth century would have thought of presenting them alone 
as a work of dramatic art without adding the last episode of the 
prophets, which is not material suitable for the theatre. There 
is dramatic art of high quality in this play; but it is subordinate 
to the religious idea. It is not in accordance with canons of 
dramatic art but in accordance with the religious idea that the 
play has been constructed. 

The Last Judgment—the most terrible and the most vital 
fact in the medieval conception of the universe—is the climax of 
many religious dramas. The literal interpretation of this event 
was never questioned. The idea was constantly held before the 
people by the clergy. Lives were regulated according to this 
belief. The Last Judgment was a fact as inevitable as death. 
Men heard it preached; they saw it depicted in stained glass 
windows and carved over the western portals of the cathedral. 
‘The passer-by merely had to raise his eyes and there broke in 
upon his vision the climax of his own personal drama depicted 
with all its tragic emotion. Whether he would be in the company 
of joyful souls singing as they ascended into eternal life or 


168 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


whether he would be in the tortured crowd of damned souls 
whipped by horrid devils into the jaws of Hell, what would be 
the dénouement of his own drama, he knew not. If the picture 
in glass, on canvas or in stone aroused tragic emotions, what 
must have been the effect of this scene enacted on the stage! 

The playwright of the Middle Ages never had realized that 
drama often portrays the clash of two contending forces; but 
he constantly put the struggle between good and evil, God and 
the Devil, on the stage. By fortuitous circumstances, he could 
not escape treating the most dramatic of all themes and por- 
traying the struggle, not of a manifestation of good and eyil, 
but of the personification of Good and Evil. Almost every seri- 
ous play of the Middle Ages presents the struggle of Heaven 
against Hell for the erring soul of weak human beings baffled 
by the enigma of life. The themes of Greek tragedy grow pale 
in comparison to the theme of medieval tragedy. And herein 
lies the weakness of medieval drama: the theme is too great, too 
mysterious. As art transcends nature, so certain thoughts and 
dreams of men transcend art. The mystery of life and of death 
and of the hereafter cannot be portrayed without losing much 
of the mystery. 


II 


The form of medieval drama which resembles the modern form 
most closely is the miracle play, which had come into existence 
by the beginning of the twelfth century. About 1100 a lost 
drama in honor of Saint Catherine was played at Dunstable. 
During this century Hilarius, probably an Englishman, wrote 
his Miracle of Saint Nicholas in Latin and French. 

In this early play, a Barbarian King, according to the stage 
directions, gathers together his property and commends it to 
the care of the image of Saint Nicholas. He then speaks sixteen 
lines explaining what he is doing. Another pantomimic scene 
follows in which robbers, ‘finding the door open and no guard,” 
steal the treasure. The Barbarian King returns. He discovers 
that his treasure is gone. Addressing the image, he expresses his 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 169 


rage and grief in a more or less comic manner. Saint Nicholas, 
himself, then goes to the robbers and threatens to announce their 
crime to the people. In pantomime once more, the robbers re- 
store the treasure and the Barbarian King finds it. Thereupon, 
he breaks out in rejoicing and praise and gives thanks to the 
image. Saint Nicholas appears to him, and, in a few words, 
tells the Barbarian King to praise God, not him. The Barbarian 
King is converted to Christianity. 

The situation is dramatic but the scenes lack development. 
They are finished before the audience can grasp their full signifi- 
cance. The medieval playwright rarely knew how to develop 
entirely the dramatic possibilities of his successive scenes. He 
is either summary or prolix in his treatment of the separate 
scenes. 

About 1205, Bodel, a Frenchman, dramatized the same story. 
His Saint Nicholas opens with an account of the story by a 
preacher, which serves as a prologue, although the action of the 
play departs from the synopsis. A Pagan King captures in battle 
a Christian who possesses an image of Saint Nicholas. The 
Christian asserts that this image will safeguard all property. 
Thereupon, the King places it over his treasure to test its power. 
Robbers, hearing this fact advertised, promptly steal the treas- 
ure; but Saint Nicholas makes them give up their ill-gotten 
wealth and the pagans turn Christian. 

Bodel invented scenes of gambling and drinking on the part 
of the robbers at an inn which are not found in the story as 
told in the prologue. These scenes are very long and show the 
influence of the medieval taste for realism and comedy. They 
are connected with the plot, since the inability of the robbers to 
pay their bill motivates the theft. But the scenes in which the 
pagan kings are summoned to battle, one after the other, have 
nothing to do with the plot. The episodes showing the prepara- 
tion for battle and the battle itself are scarcely necessary even 
as exposition. Yet one would be sorry to lose the grotesque 
scene in which the King consults the pagan idol which laughs 
and then weeps, thereby foreshadowing, in a manner not unlike 


170 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


~ the cryptic oracles in Greek tragedy, the victory of the King 
and his conversion to Christianity. 

The addition of all these scenes and the recession of the point 
of attack to the beginning of the story are indicative of the de- 
velopment which drama was undergoing. Bodel’s version is 
much longer than the earlier play of Hilarius. The point of 
attack is too early; but, once Bodel’s plot begins, there is more 
suspense, as he introduces the idea that the King will torture 
the Christian, if the treasure is stolen and if it is not restored. 
There is more dramatic action in the later play; but, as is so 
often the case in medieval drama, the secondary and even un- 
dramatic scenes are given more space than the scenes of dramatic 
conflict. The principal rdles are not well handled and all the 
interest latent in the plot is not aroused. Hilarius, even with his 
humorous touch, emphasized the miracle. Bodel overshadows 
the miracle with realistic scenes, humor and development of 
plot. Hilarius reduced the essential elements of the story to the 
simplest terms. Bodel expanded even non-essential elements. 

Much more dramatic, from the modern point of view, is Rute- 
beuf’s Miracle de Théophile. It is an early dramatization in the 
thirteenth century of the story of a man who, like Faust, sold 
his soul to the devil. The situation is undeniably dramatic. 

The action actually plunges im medias res and has a quick 
exposition. Théophile, in a monologue, tells how he has given 
all his goods to the poor but is abandoned by his Bishop and 
by God. He goes to Salatin “who spoke to the devil when he 
wished.” Salatin promises him aid, if he will renounce his 
allegiance to God. Théophile agrees. Salatin conjures up the 
Devil and arranges an interview between Théophile and him. 
Théophile sells his soul to Satan and gives him a written agree- 
ment. The Bishop immediately restores to Théophile his preb- 
end; and Théophile boasts to his former colleagues of his re- 
turn to power. Suddenly and without sufficient motivation, he 
repents and prays to Notre Dame. This is the longest scene in 
the play and was probably the climax for the medieval audience. 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 171 


The modern spectator would be interested in the psychological 
reason for repentance. The medieval spectator was content with 
the repentance itself because it was the great factor in his con- 
ception of life and death. The scene between Notre Dame and 
the Devil, which would be carefully developed by a more modern 
playwright, is inartistically brief. Notre Dame utterly routs 
the defiant Satan by the one threat: “I will trample on thy 
belly.” Satan gives her the letter. Théophile has the Bishop 
read the letter aloud so that “all people who have not perceived 
such trickery may not be deceived.” 

A further advance in the art of playwriting is evident in Une 
_ Femme Que Notre Dame Garda d’Estre Arse (A Woman Whom 
Notre Dame Kept from Being Burned), produced in the four- 
teenth century. 

The play opens with a short scene in which Guillaume and his 
daughter set out to the harvest fields. The wife Guibour and 
her son-in-law Aubin start to go to the church. Their neighbors 
insinuate that Guibour is in love with Aubin, although their 
innocence is plain from their conversation. A friend informs 
Guibour of the scandalous gossip; and the poor woman, dis- 
tracted, hires two harvesters to hide in the cellar and strangle 
Aubin when he goes down. Guibour pretends a sudden illness 
and sends the unlucky Aubin into the cellar for wine. The 
murder, contrary to usual medieval practice, takes place behind 
the scenes but the body is brought up by the murderers and laid 
in a bed. Her husband and daughter return for dinner. They 
make sport of the supposedly sleeping, lazy Aubin. This dram- 
atist knows the tragic effect of grim comedy at such a moment. 
The daughter discovers her husband’s death. The neighbors rush 
in at the outcries of grief; but the bailiff is suspicious when he 
hears of the sudden death. He comes just as the daughter is 
weeping over the coffin and begins a cross-examination. He 
orders the coffin opened and discovers marks on the neck. He 
immediately arrests the whole family. Guibour confesses to 
save her husband and daughter, swearing truthfully that her love 
for Aubin was a mother’s love. The father and daughter are set 


172 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


free. Aubin’s brother demands justice. Sentence is passed, the 
stake is ready, but Guibour prays to Notre Dame as she is bound 
to the stake. God sends Notre Dame to the rescue just as the 
flames spring up. In vain, Aubin’s brother rages; the fire will 
not burn. Notre Dame forbids the flames to touch Guibour. 
The bailiff recognizes the miracle, and the woman is set free. 
This would be the end of a modern play, but the medieval play- 
wright shows Guibour living a humble, charitable life. The play 
ends with a scene from a second narrative source, in which God 
and the saints appear to Guibour and celebrate mass. Guibour 
then enters a convent. 

The playwright has learned how to handle his narrative source 
in order to construct a dramatic plot. Gautier de Coincy in the 
narrative merely says in two lines that the woman hears that 
she is accused of being her son-in-law’s mistress; but these two 
lines are skilfully dramatized. The narrative version treats the 
action as taking place during several weeks; but the drama com- 
presses the first scenes into a few hours. The arrest, the in- 
vestigation, the confession all had to be developed from compara- 
tively few lines. 

It is almost unnecessary to point out the dramatic elements 
in this plot. The preparation is skilful and the careful arrange- 
ment of scenes produces an exciting climax. The dramatic con- 
trast of the laughing daughter trying to awaken her dead hus- 
band; the prayer of Guibour interrupted by the bailiff hastening 
the execution; the anger of the brother when Notre Dame, in- 
visible to him, quenches the flames; all show theatrical skill. 
For the medieval audience the arrival of Notre Dame, just at 
the climax, was a great coup de thédtre. 

At first glance it seems as if the dénouement of the miracle 
play is merely an ending brought about by a god from a machine 
and is similar in this respect to the ending of certain Greek 
tragedies in which the Gordian knot of the plot is conveniently 
untied by a character of superhuman power. In Greek tragedies, 
such as Philoctetes and Orestes, and in New Comedy, the god 
or catastrophic character actually prevents an unhappy ending 


0 a 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 173 


and changes the course of events, thereby keeping the plot, as 
it has been constructed, from becoming a blind-alley theme. 
This is not the case in the medieval drama. In many miracle 
plays the whole plot aims to bring about the appearance of the 
Virgin. Instead of being a mere catastrophic goddess from the 
machine to bring about the desired ending, her entrance is a 
coup de thédtre, the great dramatic climax. Many of these plots 
would be difficult to bring to an end. Our modern sense of 
justice is shocked by the fact that revolting crimes are pardoned 
because of repentant prayers offered by a criminal to the Virgin; 
but, just as it was a mark of greatest faith to believe the im- 
possible, so in these scenes the greater the act of forgiveness, 
the more artistic and dramatic it seemed to the medieval audi- 
ence. Aristotle considered the ending in which vice was punished 
and virtue rewarded as less tragic and hence less artistic than 
the unhappy ending. But the majority of theatre-goers in his 
time, as he admits, preferred a happy ending. The miracle play, 
by its very nature, had to satisfy this desire on the part of the 
medieval audience. The dramatist was relieved from having 
to devise a means to untie a knotty problem. The Greek god 
from a machine sometimes produced an illogical ending and broke 
the chain of cause and effect. The medieval goddess from the 
machine brought about a dénouement which was inevitable and 
logical to the mind of the faithful and to the believers in miracles. 
The importance attached to this scene is fully attested by the 
fact that the intervention of the Virgin is often brought into the 
play even though it is not necessary to the plot. Again, technique 
is subordinated to the religious idea; yet the French authors of 
miracle plays of the fourteenth century were learning a real 
art of playwrighting. 

The climax of the miracles, however, is not always brought 
about by the intervention of the Virgin. In the miracle of the 
Marquise de la Gaudine, the heroine has been unjustly accused 
of infidelity to her husband; and she is saved from being burned 
by a champion who overcomes her accuser and forces him to con- 
fess the truth. The Virgin appears to the Marquise and tells her 


174 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


she will be vindicated, and also comes to assure her champion 
that the Marquise is innocent. No real miracle occurs. 

The transition from such plays to the purely profane drama in 
which there is no divine intervention is easy. Thus in Griseldis, 
(1395) there is no supernatural power or divine character to 
alter the development of the plot. The story is dramatized in 
the usual medieval fashion. The early point of attack, unneces- 
sary episodes, all the events, including the birth of two children, 
are found as usual on the stage. Yet when the dramatist keeps 
to his subject, the testing of the patience of Griseldis by her hus- 
band, the resulting conflict between two human wills produce 
an impression far more modern than that of medieval plays 
in which the dramatist calls upon divine intervention to solve 
his plot. In invoking such aid the medieval dramatist was de- 
vout. He was not inartistic through inability; but, inasmuch 
as he did not take the liberty to solve human problems in a 
human way, his mind was trammelled artistically. These plays 
in which divine intervention occurs are really nothing but repre- 
sentations of the idea that no matter what you do, if you repent, 
the wrong will be righted and you will be saved. The situation 
and setting are varied. The dramatist was not free to vary the 
ending to suit varying situation or character. 

With the advent of the strictly profane drama, although the 
structure of drama remains the same and although the ending is 


still happy, the dramatist was free to work out his ending as 


he saw best. With this liberty came the opportunity to create 
the dénouement, although centuries will roll by before dramatists 
take much advantage of their liberty. Creative power as regards 
both plot and ending was practically lacking from the earliest 
times of the medieval period down to the seventeenth century. 
The playwright followed his narrative source as a rule. He only 
added dialogue. He expanded certain situations but he rarely 
invented them. At most he developed realistic scenes. ‘This lib- 
erty gained by the writer of profane plays was almost entirely 
potential. His plays did not have the monotonous ending 
brought about by divine intervention. In the early sixteenth 


as eS oe 


—_— ——— wien 


ee a ee a a a 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 175 


century the plays became more profane and the dénouements 
were varied in respect to the means by which they were affected ; 
but the happy ending, which pointed a moral or illustrated the 
grace of God, still remained. 

The Empereur Qui Tua Son Nepveu (The Emperor Who 
Killed His Nephew) is called a morality but is really a miracle 
play. The initial cause of the action presented an old emperor 
who gives up his power to his nephew. The nephew violates a 
young girl and the emperor kills him. One feels that a tragedy 
is inevitable but the emperor is the hero and the play does not 
have a tragic ending. The emperor is dying and is refused the 
sacrament. He is allowed only to see the chalice; but the host 
comes forth from the chalice and enters his mouth. All present 
recognize the miracle and the infinite grace of God who pardons 
the crime. Once more a playwright has written his play in order 
to arrive at a miracle as a happy climax. 

In the morality of Une Pauvre Fille Villageoise (A Poor Vil- 
lage Girl) (1536) no divine miracle occurs; but, although the 
situation is tragic, a psychological miracle brings a completely 
happy ending. The lord of a village wants to possess a young 
girl. To save her chastity she bids her father cut off her head. 
He is about to do so, when the lord arrives and is so overcome 
by the spectacle that he places a wreath of flowers as a “crown 
of chastity” on the young girl’s head, and makes the father his 
steward. His valet is also converted to a moral life. The poten- 
tial tragedy becomes a morality. Such situations will have a 
tragic dénouement only after the revival of classical tragedy in 
France when the aim of drama will be more to arouse emotions 
and less to teach a moral. It is not until 1571 that Bretog will 
write the Amour d’un Serviteur envers Sa Maitres (Love of a 
Servant for His Mistress) and produce realistic, non-classical 
tragedy. 

These miracle plays cover a wide range of subjects, and their 
variety is in strong contrast to the monotony of the plays on 
Biblical stories. They contain many of the faults of medieval 
technique; but they are often strikingly similar to plays of the 


176 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


nineteenth century in the situations presented on the stage. 
The sources of Maeterlinck’s Sister Beatrice and Reinhardt’s 
Miracle are among them. Others, such as Griseldis and The 
Woman Whom Notre Dame Kept from Being Burned, have 
been produced in adaptations for the modern stage. Many 
other themes of these plays might have been presented in the 
theatre of the nineteenth century if they had been modernized 
by a Sardou or a Dumas; but the medieval synthesis was not 
revived until the twentieth century, when Reinhardt began to 
bring the audience and actor into closer relationship, in such 
productions as the Miracle, by abolishing the picture frame 
proscenium, enlarging the playing space, decorating the whole 
theatre to represent a cathedral, mingling the actors and specta- 
tors, and appealing to the emotions by spectacle. 


III 


The comic element soon developed in the serious, sacred drama 
as a result of the desire to make the plays a realistic transcript 
of life. Scenes such as the three Marys purchasing oil from the 
merchant and the dialogue of the soldiers guarding the cross 
offered an opportunity for the introduction of commonplace de- 
tails even in liturgical plays. It is but a short step from the 
commonplace to the grotesque and from the grotesque to the 
comic. The same spirit which produced grotesque, comic, even 
indecent sculpture on the medieval cathedral introduced these 
elements into religious plays. Nothing was too sacred to escape 
burlesque in the Feast of the Innocents, the Feast of the Fools 
and the Feast of the Asses which consisted, in part, of proces- 
sions, a kind of comic mumming and even a parody of the rituals 
and sermons. The Christmas Merrymakers were responsible for 
the Second Shepherds’ Play. Elements of pagan festivals can be — 
found in these Christian Saturnalia. 

The comic element also made its appearance in the character 
of the ranting Herod and, one may even say, in the characters of 
the ass and other animals in the early nativity plays. Balaam’s 
ass was likewise a source of humor. By 1170, Herrad of Lands- 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 177 


berg, Abbess of Hohenburg, was denouncing the scenes of buf 
foonery in the nativity plays. 

The devil was first a serious antagonist, but the costume and 
appearance of this character were grotesque and grimly humor- 
ous. The defeats suffered by this enemy of mankind began to 
give an impression of stupidity. Flouted stupidity of an antago- 
nist provokes scornful laughter. The comic element is an in- 
evitable outgrowth of the character of a villain. He is a carica- 
ture of the ideal, and the grotesque humor inherent in a caricature 
may rise to the surface in spite of the playwright. Barabas in 
the Jew of Malta and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice are 
roles in which the tragic and comic elements are so inseparable 
that the general effect depends upon the interpretation of the 
actor and the mood of the audience. We moderns find less 
humor in them than did the Elizabethans. 

Because of the influence of the rdle of the devil in France and 
of the vice in England and because of the development of 
realistic scenes into comic scenes, tragedy and comedy are inter- 
mingled in most serious plays of the Middle Ages. The play- 
wrights began to realize that their serious scenes of great length 
had to be interspersed with humorous episodes, not in order to 
relieve the artistic tragic tension or to produce dramatic contrast 
or a conflict of emotions, but to arouse the flagging interest of 
the audience. The author of the Mystére de Sainte Genevieve 
introduces grotesque cripples, who complain of their ills and are 
cured of them by the saint, for the distinct purpose of comic 
relief in the true sense of the term, or, as he says, “in order 
_ that the performance may be less boring and more pleasing.” 
The delightful Second Shepherds’ Play, whatever its origin may 
be, serves the same purpose in the Towneley cycle. 

Thus the practice of introducing comic relief did not grow up 
as the result of an artistic ideal. Shakespeare introduced comic 
scenes into his tragedies because it was a medieval practice which 
he inherited and accepted. In the late eighteenth and early nine- 
teenth centuries, the false interpretation of this practice was 
devised by admirers of Shakespeare in order to defend him from 


178 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the criticism of classicists for having mingled tragedy and 
comedy. The phrase “comic relief’ was coined. It meant re- 
lieving tragic tension which would become too painful, if con- 
tinued, by introducing scenes of comedy. Unfortunately for 
those who believe in this theory, certain scenes of so-called comic 
relief, such as the Porter’s scene in Macbeth, are played not to 
relieve but to intensify the tragic tension. How Shakespeare 
intended this scene to be played is a matter for conjecture; 
but he certainly was not afraid of making his tragedies too tragic, 
although he introduced the Grave-diggers’ scene in Hamlet to 
get a laugh—and for no other reason. Neither psychologically 
nor historically is there any justification for the theory of comic 
relief as interpreted by its modern exponents. Comic effects do 
not relieve but intensify tragedy. Otherwise they are as in- 
artistic as is the scene of the Grave-diggers in Hamlet. 

The pagan merrymakings and festivals celebrating the return 
of spring are probably the ultimate source of such plays as 
Ii Jus Adan ou de la Feuillée (The Play of Adam or of the 
Bower) (1262) and Robin et Marion (1283-5?) probably writ- 
ten by Adam de la Hale, certainly written by a man also known 
as Adam le Bossu. Adam or the Bower is composed, by chance, 
in the general style and form of Aristophanic comedy, although 
there was no real atavistic influence since the works of Aristoph- 
anes were entirely unknown. Robin et Marion is a kind of 
charming opera. The plot deals with a pastoral love story and 
the action is interspersed with songs and dances. Written in 
the thirteenth century, when profane playwrights had learned 
how to handle a plot with a fair degree of artistry, these plays 
are by no means crude specimens of drama. They are the only 
extant examples of this form of humorous play and they did 
not exert any influence on the later development of comedy. To 
find one source of the dramaturgy of Moliére one must go not to 
such plays as these or to the comic scenes of serious medieval 
dramas but rather to the farce. 

It is possible that Roman comedy had an indirect influence on 
the farce. In the fourth century Querolus or Aulularia was com- 


ON ee ee 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 179 


posed containing passages from Plautus and Virgil; but the work 
was not intended for the stage. It cannot be proved that Hrow- 
switha’s pious comedies of the tenth century were intended for 
the stage, although they were inspired by a desire to imitate in 
a moral manner the “immoral” plays of Terence. The two 
so-called comedies, Amphitryo or Geta and Querolus or Aulularia, 
of the twelfth century and ascribed to Vitalis Blesensis, are not 
plays but narratives. Medieval writers such as Chaucer and 
Dante accepted the definitions of tragedy and comedy based 
upon the kind of ending and the social status of the characters, 
but they applied these terms to narratives as well as to plays. 

There were, however, monologues and dialogues in Latin, com- 
posed for recitation by one actor, such as De Clericis et Rustico, 
and the Comedia Babionis which may have been played by 
several actors. This “comedy,” whether recited by one or several 
actors or intended to be read, is not to be overlooked in the 
history of the farce. It is composed in verse; and, on the margin, 
the names of the character speaking and of the person to whom 
he is speaking are indicated. The play opens with Babio ex- 
tolling the charms of his step-daughter Viola and bewailing the 
fact that the knight Croceus is seeking her hand. Viola pretends 
she cares naught for Croceus. Babio’s servant Fodius is in 
love with Pecula, his master’s wife. He hopes to get rid of Viola. 
Babio orders a feast grudgingly, in the manner of Plautine misers, 
for Croceus and his parasitical friends. When they arrive, Babio 
announces that Viola is not visible because she is ill. However, 
she appears and Croceus takes her away. 

The second part of the play begins with Fame, an allegorical 
Virgilian character, telling Babio of the infidelity of his wife 
with Fodius. He accuses them but they deny the charge. Babio 
pretends to go away; and, when he returns unexpectedly, he is 
beaten as a thief. After a month he repeats the trick and under- 
goes even severer punishment. At last he becomes a monk. 

The author of this work certainly knew Plautus, as is shown 
not only by his punning in Plautine fashion but also by the 
scene in which the feast is ordered. The plot, however, is not 


180 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


classical but medieval. It is a typical situation of the farce with 
the stupid husband and the unfaithful wife who outwits and 
beats him. The ending, showing the lovers triumphant, although 
one of them is married, is the usual outcome of such situations 
in medieval comedy and in such plays as Machiavelli’s Mandra- 
gola and Moliére’s George Dandin which are highly developed 
medieval farces. The Comedia Babionis, itself, is more compli- 
cated and more developed than farces in the vernacular. If this 


work is a real play, the author must have found his inspiration 


in Plautus or in narrative comedies founded upon Plautus. 

There is little of classical comedy left in this Comedia, for 
the author employs a medieval method in dealing with a medieval 
theme. Whether or not the play was played or intended to be 
played, at least the writers of farces in the vulgar tongue did not 
have to invent the form or material they employ. They only 
had to translate or imitate such works and have them acted. 
Not until the fifteenth century will farces be found showing a 
development in plot or technique beyond the Comedia Babionis. 
The fact that there is no other extant work in Latin exactly 
similar to this comedy is by no means evidence that others did 
not exist. Manuscripts of medieval plays were extremely perish- 
able. Liturgical dramas and mystery plays would be more likely 
to survive in the hands of pious monks, but profane comedy 
would survive almost by chance. 

The farce is a short play in one act which deals with marriage, 
marital misadventures, politics, religion and social satire. Li 
Garchons et li Aweules (The Boy and the Blind Man) in Flem- 
ish of the thirteenth century is the earliest extant farce and 
presents an episode of a blind beggar robbed by a boy. It is 
amusing but very primitive in its construction. Many such plays 


must have been lost and not until the fifteenth century did a 


collection of farces survive. These plays represent all degrees 
of complication of situation from the humorous monologue of 
the Franc Archier de Baignolet (Free Archer of Baignolet), to 
the well-developed plot of Maistre Pierre Pathelin by Alécis. But 


co —7 P 
a a a ae 


Nae a Pewee ee eee es ee eS ee 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 181 


the plot never attained the complexity of certain Latin comedies 
and later comedies of the Renaissance. 

The later farces, however, bring new elements into medieval 
drama. As they are at least unmoral, their construction is un- 
modified by didactic or religious considerations. In comedy 
alone the medieval playwright was untrammelled. He shaped 
and developed the situations on lines which seemed to him to 
be artistic. So far as can be discovered, the writer of comedy 
was less inclined to dramatize narratives, whereas the serious 
playwright sought his plot and its development in scenes from 
sacred or semi-sacred narratives. The very nature of the farce 
precluded the introduction of long, rambling scenes. The prin- 
cipal characters are never crowded out of the action by voluble 
persons who have little or nothing to do with the plot. There 
are never more than six characters in French farces and everyone 
in the play is indispensable to the action. Not until the sixteenth 
century in England will Heywood introduce a larger number of 
roles into the farce. 

The exposition is swift, for the situation, at the beginning, is 
always very simple. No complicated relationships, previous 
events, concealed identities or long-lost children have to be ex- 
plained as was the case in Latin comedy. The Farce d’un Gentil- 
homme, also known as Naudet, illustrates how quickly the expo- 
sition is given and how subtly the initial cause of the action is 
explained. Lison, the wife of Naudet, begins: 


LIsoNn 
Am I not out of luck to have married such a man. 

NAUDET 
What? Is my shirt dirty? Well now, if it is, I am sorry. Do 
you know what I am laughing at? At the lord of our village 
who goes carousing around at night. 

LIsON 
What do you know, you wicked fellow? 

NAUDET 
What do I know? Ha. That’s a good one. What do I know? 
Who would know? I saw him. 


182 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


LIsoN 
When, when? 
NAUDET 
Last night. 
Lison 
Where, where? 
NAUDET 
Standing there, under the gable of our house, where he was with 
a girl. “é 
Lison 
Do you know who she was? 
NAUDET 
Oh yes. I-knew them both. 
LIson 
Do you mean it was me? 
NAUDET 
Softly, softly! I’m not saying a word about it. 
Lison 
I promise you, by my faith, that if he hears you, he’ll have you 
put in prison. 
NAUDET 
Well, I’m not talking about it, Lison. 


The situation is sufficiently plain. The Gentleman arrives and 
sends Naudet away on several errands; but the troublesome 
husband always returns, inopportunely for the Gentleman. 
Finally he sends Naudet to the manor with a message for his 
Lady. When Naudet arrives, she is not loath to receive the 
advances of the rustic. The Gentleman grows suspicious at 
Naudet’s absence. When he returns to the manor, Naudet in- 
forms him that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. In 
the circumstances, the dénouement is rather peaceful but is 
typical of the farce. 

The farce of the Poulailler (Hen-House) shows a development 
in the art of complicating the plot, for the dramatist takes a 
similar situation and, by adding a second Gentleman and his 
wife, is able to introduce many more comic scenes. This play 


ee ee ee ee ae ee ee 


Ve et ee ee ee a -— 


aa eS See ee | ee ee OO ee 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA _ 183 


opens with two Gentlemen discussing the question of receiving 
the favors of the miller’s wife. The second scene presents the 
miller and his wife. They are involved in financial difficulties ; 
and, in order to get money, the wife proposes a scheme to extract 
the needed sum from her two gallants. The miller is to pretend 
to go on a journey and return and catch the two Gentlemen with 
his wife. Thus the whole plot is motivated and an obligatory 
scene is foreshadowed. Motivation and foreshadowing are rare 
in medieval drama. Also, the dramatist does not rush immedi- 
ately to the obligatory scene as is generally the case with the 
farce. The action develops smoothly and gradually. 

They hear the first Gentleman coming. The miller pretends 
to sleep, while his wife makes the bargain. With difficulty they 
awaken the miller and give him the money. The Gentleman 
leaves. The second Gentleman arrives, and the same game is 
played on him. The dramatist knew that in such scenes repeti- 
tion is humorous. When the second gallant has departed to 
await an hour propitious for his return, the miller hides. The 
first Gentleman returns; but his téte-a-téte over the little supper 
is interrupted by the arrival of the second lover; and he conceals 
himself in the hen-house above the room, and dolefully watches 
his friend supplant him at the table. When the husband thinks 
that the comedy is about to turn into a tragedy for him, he 
pretends to return and the second gallant hastily climbs the 
ladder and joins his friend. The two shamefaced Gentlemen are 
forced to witness the husband devour the supper they had pro- 
vided. 

But the dramatist has not yet exhausted the possibilities of 
the situation. The miller is now in a merry mood. He sends 
his wife to bring the spouse of the first Gentleman; and then he 
sends for the wife of the second Gentleman. The miller proceeds 
to make love to the wife of the first Gentleman, who looks on 
from above and finally starts to climb down the ladder but is 
restrained by his friend who has nothing to gain by being dis- 
covered. When the wife of the second Gentleman arrives, the 
miller turns his amorous attention to her and now it is the turn 


184 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


of the second Gentleman to rage and listen to the good advice 
he has just given his friend. At last the miller investigates the 
noise in the hen-house, and drags the unfortunate gallants down. 
He lets them sadly go their way when they prornise to give him 
outright the money they have loaned him. 

Whatever one may think of the morality of the play, the tech- 
nique is undeniably clever. Not a word is wasted, not a possi- 
bility of comic effect is lost. It is not great art but it is artistic, 
and, on the whole, better constructed than most serious medieval 
plays. With the French playwrights of the Middle Ages able to 
handle a situation with such deftness and directness, there is 
little wonder that modern French dramatists became masters in 
the art of theatrical legerdemain. 

Such is the medieval comedy of situation in its most highly de- 
veloped form; but the Maistre Pierre Pathelin offers subtlety 
and wit in place of the broad humor of the usual farce. Also, 
the character of Pathelin, which dominates the action, is drawn 
with such clearness that his name has become a synonym for 
wheedling, flattering, sharp lawyers. 

The play begins with a scene between Pathelin and Guillemette, 
his wife. They are out of money and their clothes are thread- 
bare; but Pathelin boasts that he will get cloth for new outfits 
for both of them. He hies himself to the Draper’s shop. They 
exchange polite greetings, and Pathelin begins his subtle attack 
by praising the Draper’s father. “What a wise merchant he 
was! By God, your face is the very picture of his.” The Draper 
immediately begs Pathelin to sit down. The lawyer continues 
his flattery, and, casually fingering a bit of cloth, says: “What a 
fine piece of cloth.” He grows more and more enthusiastic; 
and with no little haggling, the cloth is bought—but not paid 
for. The merchant is wary about credit; but, when Pathelin 
invites him to come and collect the money and eat a roast goose, 
the Draper consents and says he will bring the cloth. Pathelin, 
protesting that he cannot burden the Draper with the package, 
marches off with the cloth under his arm, hinting to the audience 


Ss Le 


FRENCH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 185 


that the merchant will never get a sou from him, while the 
Draper chuckles over the price he has obtained. 

Pathelin reports to his wife what he has done. The audience 
is in delightful comic suspense, because the fingerposts are point- 
ing to a real clash of wits between the two sharpers. A fine 
balance is kept between anticipatory curiosity and certain knowl- 
edge of what is going to happen, when as Pathelin says, the 
Draper comes “braying around” for his pay. 

On the arrival of his guest, Pathelin jumps into bed; and his 
wife tells the dumbfounded Draper that the idea of Pathelin 
having bought any cloth is preposterous, for he has been sick 
unto death for weeks. The Draper cannot believe his ears or 
eyes ; but, after going away once, he returns only to find Pathelin 
feigning a raving, staring madness. He finally believes that the 
devil himself tricked him, just as every one in the medieval 
audience would have believed had he been in the Draper’s place. 

The plot then takes a new, but perfectly logical turn. The 
Draper hales his shepherd into court for having eaten several of 
his sheep, whereupon the shepherd engages none other than 
Pathelin to defend him. Again one awaits with comic suspense 
the meeting of the two sharpers. When court convenes, Pathelin, 
feigning a toothache, covers his face. When the Draper is in 
the midst of his eloquent speech of accusation, Pathelin springs 
a coup de théatre by disclosing his face, whereat the Draper 
looses his wits; and, forgetting the stolen sheep, he begins to 
accuse Pathelin of stealing cloth. The judge is stupefied and 
the situation becomes more and more entangled and absurdly 
humorous. The judge questions them all and begs for sanity 
as they talk first of sheep and then of cloth. Finally, when the 
shepherd, coached by Pathelin, responds to all questions by 
bleating like a sheep, the judge leaves in despair. Pathelin then 
denies absolutely to the Draper that he ever bought any cloth 
of him; and the poor Draper can only rush away, saying to 
Pathelin: “I am going to your house to see, by Heaven, if you 
are here or there.” The clever Pathelin has won his game. But 


186 


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CHAPTER VII 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA. KYD. 
MARLOWE. SHAKESPEARE 


BEN English drama emerged as a distinct national art in 

the fourteenth century it differed in certain respects from 
French drama. In England the miracle play, such as the French 
Miracles de Notre Dame, dealing with romantic concrete stories, 
was not popular. In spite of the Second Shepherds’ Play, which 
is a delightful little comedy, the farce does not seem to have 
been either indigenous or even popular until Heywood adapted 
French originals to the English stage. The two native forces 
at work in shaping drama in the fourteenth, fifteenth and early 
sixteenth centuries are the cyclic plays on the Bible, and the 
morality presenting abstract plots and characters. The purely 
abstract morality play existed:in France; but the French miracle 
play, with its wide range of situations and characters, over- 
shadowed the morality as a force in dramatic art. English 
drama, aside from certain episodes in the cycles, was tedious 
and monotonous in comparison with French plays until Conti- 
nental influences crossed the channel and began to instill new 
life into the morality plays. 

The origin of the plot and characters of the morality is found 
in such allegorical works as Psychomachia composed by Pruden- 
tius in the fifth century, and, in later times, in the Romance of 
the Rose. The allegorical machinery of the Psychomachia, deal- 
ing with a conflict between vices and virtues representing abstract 
characters, was taken over by the serious drama. Perhaps the 
lost Paternoster Play of York, “in which play” we are told, “all 
manner of vices and sins were held up to scorn and the virtues 
were held up to praise,” represented the primitive type of the 

187 


188 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


morality in which, as in the work of Prudentius, there were con- 
flicts between vices and virtues, without Man as the bone of 
contention or hero. The second phase of the development would 
be the introduction of the hero, and Mr. Chambers is probably 
right in his conjecture that Vicious in a pageant given in 1469 at 
Beverly was probably a typical representative of frail humanity. 
Thus one of the vices may have furnished the necessary transi- 
tion to a hero, if this pageant is at all reminiscent of earlier moral 
plays. 

When the history of the separate moral play actually begins 
for us with the fragmentary Pride of Life (ca. 1410) and The 
Castle of Perseverance (1400-1440), the form is highly developed ; 
and any future changes to be noted are developments away from 
the abstract, religious morality towards secular, concrete situa- 
tions and characters. There are three motives on which the plot 
of the moral plays is based: the Conflict of Vices and Virtues; 
the Coming of Death; the Debate either of the Heavenly Graces 
or of the Soul and Body. The prologue of The Pride of Life 
points to a debate of the latter type, but no example of this 
motive has been preserved. These three elements of the moral 
play are used in different combinations or alone as the basis of 
the action. The Castle of Perseverance employs all of them. 
The famous Everyman, a late translation from the Dutch, 
dramatizes the Coming of Death. Indeed, this element and the 
Debate are merely dénouements to the conflict. The Debate, in 
which the soul of the sinner was saved, served as the required 
happy ending of the medieval drama. The Coming of Death is 
used only in Everyman as a tragic dénouement unrelieved by 
any sense of a happier future. In The Pride of Life, the King 
of Life, the hero of the play, is slain by Death; but the tragedy 
of the episode is mitigated by a scene indicated in the prologue 
in which Our Lady intercedes successfully for the soul of the 
King. Tragedy with an unhappy ending was not a medieval 
form of drama. 

The Conflict of the Vices and Virtues became the mainspring 
of the plot of moralities, especially after 1450. Professor Ramsey 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 189 


has analyzed the normal form of the Conflict type of moralities 
as follows: 


Humanity or Mankind is presented surrounded on the one hand by 
certain Vices, on the other by certain Virtues. The Vices are as- 
sisted by the Devil or his agents or else combine in themselves the 
functions of Vices plus Devils or Tempters; and the Virtues are sim- 
ilarly assisted by God or divine agents, or themselves act as both 
Virtues and the agents of God. Humanity is innocent and usually 
inclines to the side of the Virtues. A conflict ensues between the 
parties of good and evil, which takes the form of strife for the favor 
of Humanity. The powers of evil successfully accomplish their 
temptation. Humanity joins their side, and lives in sin for a sea- 
son. Another conflict arises; this time the powers of good advance 
to the attack by persuading Humanity to repentance. Humanity is 
convicted of sin, and, after exhibiting the proper marks of penitence, 
is reclaimed once more to the side of virtue. The plot was often 
doubled by depicting a renewed assault by the Vices, a renewed fall 
and life of sin by Humanity, and a renewed repentance; in this 
case one of the two battles might be made subordinate to the other, 
or turned into a mere skirmish. 


This scenario, which with minor modifications would fit any 
English morality, has certain potential dramatic features. The 
action develops from an exposition showing the hero in a state 
of innocence through a conflict to a dénouement. There is 
dramatic progression and a peripeteia. The skeleton of a play 
exists. But the skeleton lacks life, just as the abstract characters 
representing Mankind, Perseverance, Gluttony, etc., are devoid 
of human qualities in the typical moral play. The personages are 
one-sided. The Virtues represent one virtue and the Vices but 
one vice. The plots and characters are monotonous. Although 
the imagination of the playwright was not hampered by historical 
or sacred sources, the writers of the moral plays showed little 
originality or variation of story and characters. 

The earliest extant morality, The Pride of Life, has characters 
concrete enough to be designated as the Queen, the Bishop; but 


190 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the later plays, such as The Castle of Perseverance and Wisdom 
and Mankind, contain only abstractions. Furthermore, the plots 
of these moralities are theological. The secularization of the 
morality came about when the characters ceased to be abstrac- 
tions and became types of human beings. This development can 
be observed in Skelton’s Magnificence (ca. 1516) in which the 
theme is the preservation of worldly prosperity instead of the 
usual theme of salvation of the soul. The hero is not an abstract 
Mankind or Man, but is a typical prince. The satire is directed 
at actual persons, not at mankind. Yet Magnificence still retains 
the construction of the morality in its plot. 

In Nice Wanton, the scene in which Dalila begins her down- 
ward career by playing dice is represented; but, after a long 
interval of time has elapsed, Dalila enters in a deplorable condi- 
tion of mind and body. The playwright has suppressed the 
realistic scenes in which her downfall is accomplished. Worldly 
Shame acts as messenger of the news of the death of Dalila and 
Ismael; and Barnabas reports the repentance of the two before 
their death. 

The development of realism and of comedy in the morality 
was very slow. Such elements were really out of keeping with 
the aim of such plays; and it seems that the playwrights actually 
avoided realistic scenes by using the device of reporting and not 
representing certain scenes. This procedure is exceedingly rare 
in medieval drama and cannot be ascribed to any feeling for 
unity of place. In Nature and in The Four Elements, for ex- 
ample, the episodes in the tavern are kept behind the scenes and 
the audience is merely told what happens in each case. In the 
Mary Magdalene episode in the Digby Plays, the heroine is as 
real a person as one finds on the medieval stage; and, although 
she is tempted by abstract vices, there is a realistic scene in a 


tavern. However, this is not an example of realism introduced © 


into a moral play, but the machinery of the morality esa 
in the more concrete Biblical play. 


The avoidance of the scene in the tavern, which offered prac- i 
tically the sole opportunity for realism in the morality, also 


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ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 191 


militated against the introduction of comedy which follows 
naturally in the wake of such realistic scenes. In Mundus et 
Infans the events of the hero’s sinful career in London are kept 
off the stage, but Folly’s narration of the life in London abounds 
in realistic and humorous details. 

The play of The Four Elements also illustrates the growth of 
the comic element in the later morality. The author has con- 
structed his play in scenes alternately “sad and mery,” and 
makes the remark that “yf ye lyst ye may leve out much of 
the sad mater.” The author of this play does not set a scene in 
a tavern, but at least he brings the real taverner on the stage 
to indulge in coarse humor with the abstract Experience, Hu- 
manity and others. In Nature, such concrete characters as the 
trull Margery and the taverner are carefully kept off the stage, 
although we hear of the comic scenes in which they play an 
important role. 

The character of the vice, whether developed from an ab- 
straction or from the role of the devil, became one of the chief 
funmakers as the morality turned more and more from serious 
religious teaching to philosophical subjects and finally into 
satirical comedy. From this character will spring the merry 
fools of Elizabethan comedy. 

Yet the morality remained stereotyped in spite of these de- 
velopments which are comparatively slight so far as technique 
is concerned. The range of characters, situations and scenes is 
very limited. The tendency toward comedy is marked; but 
foreign influence had to be brought to bear upon these plays 
before Elizabethan comedy could come forth from its abstract 
chrysalis and enmeshing web of allegory. 

The morality, however, is important because it was not played 
by guilds at stated periods in certain districts, but was rather a 
professional performance taken on tour, unless The Castle of 
Perseverance is anomalous in this respect. This play was 
acted, according to the prologue, in different towns; and the 
actors were strolling players instead of worthy tradesmen or 
pious clerks. Also, these plays, which became more and more 


192 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


secular entertainments, steadily declined in length. Drama of 
the epic proportions it had assumed in Biblical plays began to 
be compressed into “the two hours traffic of our stage.” Since 
the length of a play influences the whole construction, this 
tendency of the moral play toward brevity is important. The 
rise of the professional actor and the formation of an audience, 
which wished to be entertained and not merely edified, were 
contributary causes to the movement toward compactness in 
drama. 

French influence on English drama has almost always been a 
factor to be taken into account from the earliest times down to 
the present. There are records of French actors who visited 
England in 1494 and 1495; and also of six “Mynstrells of 
France” who came about 1509. The repertory of these com- 
panies is unknown; but as the farce was at that time a popular 
form of entertainment in France, they probably produced some 
of these gay, cynical comedies in England. By 1535 the famous 
farce of Pathelin was known in England. 

Heywood was the first English playwright to hold the sound 
theory that the aim of drama is to amuse and not to teach. 
Even his Pardoner and the Friar and The Four P’s, in which 
there is little or no plot, are plainly written to make people 
laugh. His Play of the Weather shows the influence of the 
morality in the character of Merry-report, a humorous Vice; 
but it is comedy without a trace of the didacticism of the 
morality. i 

His Johan Johan (1533-1534), like the Second Shepherds’ Play, 
is a gay farce; but, unlike the episode of the Towneley cycle, it 
has no connection with any religious play. It is comedy for the 
sake of comedy. This play is founded in part upon the French 
farce Pernet. It contains a typical farcical situation. Johan 
Johan opens the play with the boast that he will beat his wife 
Tyb because she visits the priest Syr Jhan too frequently and 
tarries too long. When Tyb arrives, Johan calms down very 
quickly; and it is easy to see who rules the household. Tyb 
bids her husband invite the priest to come and eat a pie with 


| 
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. 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 193 


them. Johan sets out on his errand, grumbling and suspicious. 
Syr Jhan, however, disarms him by pretending that he is un- 
willing to accept the invitation because Tyb is angry at him, 
he alleges, for penances he has imposed upon her. When he has 
sufficiently duped the husband, the priest accompanies him home. 
Tyb sends Johan for water with a pail that has a hole in it. 
He returns with the empty pail in time to interrupt the usual 
love-making; and he is set to chafing wax to mend the pail, 
while the lovers sup. Finally, his patience gives way and “they 
fight by the ears a while, and then the priest and the wife go 
out of the place,” soon to be pursued by the husband who wisely 
fears to leave them alone. 

The technique is that of the highly developed French farce. 
If the extant version of Pernet is the only source of Johan Johan, 
Heywood has considerably improved upon his model. The scene 
of the supper is only suggested in the French version, and 
Heywood constructs a very humorous situation out of the idea. 
The scene between Johan and the priest is also added by the 
English dramatist. Both in dialogue and in the development of 
the plot, Heywood shows a skill beyond any of his English 
contemporaries. He must be given full credit for his ability to 
handle a situation; but he probably attained some of his skill 
from reading or seeing French farces. At any rate, English 
comedy had now freed itself from the unreal atmosphere of 
the morality. It was ready to develop into the lively realistic 
comedy of the Elizabethan age, although classical influence was 
also necessary to produce the finished products of Shakespeare 
and of Jonson. 

The Spanish tragi-comedy entitled Calisto y Melibea but gen- 
erally known as Celestina brought still another foreign influence 
on English drama about 1530 when the play Calisto and Melibea 
was published and perhaps written by Rastell. The original 
Spanish play, attributed to Fernando de Rojas, had been com- 
pleted in 1502. It consists of twenty-one acts and is more a 
romance in dialogue than a play. Nevertheless, it had a wide 
influence in Europe during the sixteenth century especially in 


194 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


presenting the model of a bawd through the character of 
Celestina. This famous personage, as well as the situation, is 
drawn probably from the medieval Latin comedy entitled 
Pamphilus, and from similar characters of classical comedy. 

The Spanish play, however, deals with the situation in a man- 
ner different from that of Plautus or Terence. The young lover 
appeals to a servant and through the servant to a bawd for 
the opportunity of meeting the object of his desires. While in 
Latin comedy the obstacles separating the lovers arise from ex- 
traneous circumstances, in this play it is the modesty of the 
heroine which must be overcome. Also, in the Spanish play, the 
love story is not a mere situation kept off the stage and devised 
for the purpose of creating humorous scenes. The romantic love 
between Calisto and Melibea is the main interest of the play 
and is given a tragic ending. Calisto is accidentally killed by 
a leap from a wall and the heroine commits suicide by throwing 
herself from a tower. This is romantic drama but designed to 
teach young people to guard against tricky servants and go- 
betweens. Celestina herself is killed by two servants who are 
executed for their crime. Thus little remains of Latin comedy 
except the initial situation. The tone of the play is romantic — 
and tragic. 

The English play Calisto and Melibea is drawn from the first 
four acts. Calisto meets Melibea and declares his love for her, 
but she repulses him. Through his servant, he enlists the bawd 
Celestina to plead for him and she gains access to the heroine. 
Melibea upbraids Celestina for presenting the suit of Calisto; 
but the old go-between makes her believe that Calisto merely de- 
sires Melibea’s girdle, which has touched many relics, as a cure for 
a toothache. Having reached this point where romantic and 
tragic scenes would develop, the English playwright introduces 
Melibea’s father. He recounts an allegorical dream to Melibea 
who is so impressed by the warning that she decides to stifle 
her growing love for Calisto and remain virtuous. Thus the 
didactic tendency of the Spanish play and of the English morality 
play brings a possible romantic tragedy to an end which is not 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 195 


tragic nor comic nor artistic, but simply moral. No better 
example can be cited of the blighting effect of didacticism in 
dramatic art. The playwright had before him in the Spanish 
play life-like characters in a dramatic situation, instead of the 
usual abstract characters in an allegorical situation of the moral 
plays. He needed only to condense the original in order to bring 
forth the first English romantic drama. But he failed, dismally. 

Classical comedy reached England in translation before 1530 
when Andria was printed by Rastell under the title Terens in 
English. WUatin comedy had been acted in the original by 1520, 
when Henry VIII had “a goodly comedy of Plautus” staged for 
the entertainment of French hostages. In schools and colleges 
the acting of Latin plays was a frequent occurrence. In 1527 
the Menechmi, with its situation of mistaken identity, so popular 
in the Renaissance, was played by the boys of St. Paul’s school. 
These performances were more than extra-curriculum activities, 
for a rule was passed at Cambridge in 1546 that any student who 
refused to play a role in a tragedy or comedy or who did not 
attend a performance would be expelled. 

A secondary influence of Latin comedy also came from Holland 
where the humanist William de Volder, known as Gnapheus, 
wrote Acolastus which was performed at The Hague in 1529. John 
Palsgrave translated this play and published both the Latin and 
English versions in 1540. Acolastus is the story of the prodigal 
son treated in the manner of Terence. 

The English dramatists did not immediately adopt the compli- 
cated plot of Latin comedy. They still employed a simple situa- 
tion of the medieval farce. In Thersites (1537), adapted prob- 
ably by Heywood from one of Ravisius Textor’s dialogues, the 
principal character is a loutish braggart captain; and the play 
deals, for the most part, with his cowardice when confronted 
with a snail and later with a soldier. It resembles the French 
farce of the Free Archer of Baignolet more than a comedy of 
Plautus or Terence. In Jacke Jugeler (1562), the servant Jacke 
makes Jenkin Careaway believe that he is not himself just as 


196 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Mercury tricks Sosia in Amphitryo. The play, however, is a mere 
farce without any of the complications of the original Plautine 
comedy. 

A long-lost child brings about the dénouement of Misogonus. 
The wicked brother gives up his riotous life when the virtuous 
brother returns from Poland; but the play is much more of a 
farce and a morality in technique than a Latin comedy. The 
riotous scenes in the tavern, which were behind the scenes in 
moral plays, are represented with great realism. The wicked 
Misogonus is deserted by his boon companions, when he is dis- 
inherited; and he repents like the hero of the morality. There 
are scenes of revelry with courtezans in Plautine comedy, but 
the hero in Latin comedy is not left in the lurch by his friends 
nor does he have to mend his ways. It is the old father who 
relents or repents on the Roman stage; but in Misogonus the 
father is triumphant. Misogonus was inspired by Acolastus more 
than by the morality; but the moral play is the ultimate source 
for such situations and their development. The idea of the 
prodigal son is not Roman but Christian. 

The plots of such plays, remotely connected with classical 
comedy, make a very different effect than do the plots of Plautus 
or Terence. Had Misogonus been written by a Roman play- 
wright, the hero would have married the courtezan and she 
would have turned out to be the long-lost child of a worthy 
citizen. The other episodes in the play belong to the realm of 
the farce; and the priest, especially, recalls Heywood’s Syr Jhan. 
As was the case in France, the farce was a form too sturdy to 
be driven off the stage at the first appearance of foreign importa- 
tions. 

These diverse elements, however, are handled with skill; and, 
while English comedy does not as yet accept the complicated 
plot, it shows a development in the plotting beyond the farces of 
Heywood. There are many more episodes in Misogonus than in 
Johan Johan, and none of the prolixity and formlessness of the 
medieval drama. Still more carefully constructed and more 
classical in its characters is Udall’s Ralph Roister-Doister (1534- 


RS ee ee ee oe 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 197 


1541). The play is divided into acts and scenes; and, following 
a frequent practice of classical comedy, each act begins with a 
monologue. 

The situation, however, is more medieval than classical. Rois- 
ter-Doister, a boastful coward, is enamored of Dame Custance. 
Through his parasite Matthew Merrygreeke, he woos her un- 
successfully, for she is faithful to Gawyn Goodluck who is away 
on a long voyage. When Roister-Doister presses his suit too 
violently, he and his servant are put to rout by Dame Custance 
in a rough-and-tumble fight. Gawyn Goodluck returns but not 
as a deus ex machina. His servant reports that he has seen the 
servant of Roister-Doister bearing gifts to Dame Custance and 
he suggests that Gawyn investigate the matter. Gawyn learns 
how the Dame has flouted Roister-Doister who is finally received 
by them as a friend once more. 

In Gammer Gurton’s Needle, there is naught of classical 
comedy save the division into acts. The characters are all from 
the medieval farcical interludes. Gammer Gurton has lost her 
needle. Diccon, the bedlam or fool, accuses Dame Chat of 
having taken it. He tells Dame Chat that Gammer Gurton 
suspects her of stealing her cock. The result is a slapstick fight 
between the two dames. By similar trickery, Dame Chat is 
led to beat the village priest in the dark, believing him to be 
Hodge, Gammer Gurton’s servant, who is stealing hens. A trial 
takes place and it is discovered that Doctor Rat has the broken 
skull, not Hodge; and the needle is discovered sticking in Hodge’s 
breeches. 

In both plays there is just enough plot to carry the five acts 
but the plots are secondary. The humor lies in the lively char- 
acters and the dialogue. The didactic element has disappeared 
and the classical element is barely visible in the episode of the 
return of the husband of Dame Custance in Ralph Roister- 
Doister. 

The complicated plot depending upon mistaken identity entered 
English drama when the students of Gray’s Inn acted a trans- 
lation of Aristo’s Suppositt in 1566. This translation was the 


198 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


work of George Gascoigne and was called The Supposes. The 
whole machinery of Latin-Italianate comedy is contained in this 
play including the characters, the street-scene, the mistaken 
identity, the romantic love in the background, and the dénoue- 
ment through a recognition scene. The heroine appears but once. 
The lovers do not meet before our eyes. The point of attack 
is late in the story. The play opens after Erostrato has changed 
places with his servant in order to be near his mistress in her 
father’s house. Many of the scenes present the usual complica- 
tions of mistaken identity. 
The Bugbears, published in 1561, offers a still more compli- 
cated plot. This play is a free adaptation of Grazzini’s Spiritata, 
together with ideas borrowed from Gl’ Ingannati and Andria. 
The intricate plot is handled in the usual Italian fashion; and, 
because of the street-scene, the observance of the unities and 
the late point of attack, much of the action is off the stage. 
English playwrights, however, tend to keep the action on the 
stage when they have learned the art of building complicated 


plots. In spite of all this foreign influence the Elizabethan stage 


remains medieval. It represents events to the eye. Indeed, there 
are two comedies of the classical type in which the action is for 
the most part on the stage. Pasqualigo’s Fidele (1575) is nota- 
ble for the large part played by the lovers and the play was 
adapted, probably by Anthony Munday, as The Comedy of Two 
Italian Gentlemen (1584). The play is founded on a typically 
complicated plot dealing with two pairs of lovers and their 
servants. In the Italian play one of the women is married, and 
her husband is duped in the manner of the medieval farce. The 
English version drops out the character of the cuckold which was 
not so popular in England as on the Continent. A braggart cap- 
tain, a pedant and a go-between of the Celestina type are the 
other characters. In spite of the street-scene, the heroines are 
often on the stage; and there are several scenes between the 
lovers which are normally off the stage in classical comedy. 
Mistaken identity through disguise and scenes of incantation 
are the chief sources of humor; yet the dénouement is not brought 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 199 


about by any discovery, but by the different pairs of lovers 
becoming reconciled. 

Lyly’s Mother Bombie (ca. 1590) offers a similar set of com- 
plications. Here there are three pairs of lovers, and they are 
often on the stage in spite of the presence in the cast of the 
usual servants and irate parents. A recognition scene clears up 
the identity of two of the couples and helps to solve the problems. 
Thus by 1590, the English dramatist was acquainted with all 
the situations and the characters of classical comedy; but the 
separation of tragedy and comedy was a theory which did not 
appeal to the English. Classical comedy and classical tragedy 
were both strongly modified by romantic drama. There is much 
less difference between the construction of comedy and that of 
tragedy in England than in France, where the two forms are 
kept rigorously distinct. 

In his Endimion (ca. 1585), Lyly also employed the tech- 
nique of classical comedy. The situation is one of love at cross 
purposes among pairs of lovers. The men have their usual serv- 
ants and the ladies have their maids-in-waiting. Sir Tophas is a 
braggart captain. Several scenes are familiar ones of Italian 
comedy, such as the opening scene in which two young men in 
love give the exposition, the soliloquies of the lovelorn, the 
scene between Tellus and her confidant, the scenes between Sir 
Tophas and the pages. Even Dipsas the enchantress, an old 
hag, smacks of the Italian go-between and magician type. 

But Lyly performed the same service for comedy in England 
that the writers of pastoral plays did for Italian comedy. His 
principal characters are decent young men and women. Also, 
instead of making them always shepherds and shepherdesses, he 
often created them as classical, mythological beings. Instead of 
removing them from the public square to Arcadia as in Love’s 
Metamorphosis, he placed them generally in a classical fairyland, 
or in a classical country. His scenes are not restricted to a 
woodland. The same wide variety of scenes and situations, 
common to other forms of English drama, is found in Lyly’s 
Woman in the Moone. 


200 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The situation and the plot are subservient to the dialogue. 
His main story gives just enough continuity to a series of grace- 
ful, charming scenes, such as Watteau painted in the eighteenth 
century. The lovers weave romantic filigrees against a back- 
ground of pastel shades. The main story is often interrupted by 
another series of scenes in which rustics or pages discourse on a 
much lower scale of humor. The connection between these two 
series is tenuous. Some of his plots are simple, as in Campaspe. 
He never relies primarily on interest in his plot; but the tendency 
towards complication is manifest in his Endimion, Love’s Met- 
amorphosis, The Woman in the Moone, and Mother Bombie. 

Even when Lyly turned to classical history in Campaspe, he 
did not produce a chronicle or a tragedy. The episode which 
attracted him in the life of Alexander the Great was not a 
conquest or a tragic deed, but his love for his beautiful captive 
and his renunciation of her to Apelles. He found romantic 


comedy wherever he looked; and he gave to Shakespeare, as — 


models, witty people who find wooing a delightful experience. 
The transition from the morality to tragedy took place as the 
plays began to lose their didactic purpose, as the characters be- 
came more concrete or historical, and as scenes were put on the 
stage for the sake of horror, or for dramatic rather than didactic 
reasons. Everyman with its tragic ending, effective even to- 
day, did not give rise to a series of plays tending toward tragedy. 
After 1530 the moralities were rarely entirely devoid of concrete 
characters and situations, yet the formula of the moral plot still 
persisted. The development from morality to drama treating 
seriously events in the lives of concrete characters was slow. 
Bale’s Kynge Johan (ca. 1548) is a morality so far as its plot is 
concerned, although the hero is a historical character and he 
suffers death. Yet the play has a happy ending, for it does not 
end with his death but with the downfall of the Vices and the 
triumph of Virtue in the usual medieval fashion. | 
Nice Wanton is more dramatic, but its aim is moral. Certain 
scenes are not represented. The author, perhaps Thomas Inge- 
land, was not so interested in showing the events in the story 


Pees FP Cm 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 201 


or in portraying characters as in pointing a moral. The Jnter- 
lude of the Virtues and Godly Queen Hester (1560-1561) and 
King Darius (ca. 1565) show that the playwrights were begin- 
ning once more to seek for plots in narrative sources, although 
characters of the morality appear. 

There is almost nothing in the plays which discloses a con- 
scious art of dramatic technique beyond the mere representation 
of a story on a stage and pointing a moral. The point of attack 
is the beginning of the story. There is little or no foreshadowing 
or preparation. The action wanders, and the reason why certain 
scenes are enacted and others are left out is not plain. The 
dénouement is the result of poetic justice. That is the one 
sure guide for the dramatist. The rest is confusion, so far as 
technique is concerned. 

Latin humanistic dramas, such as had been produced in Italy 
and France, were known to English scholars; but it was not until 
after the middle of the sixteenth century that the classical influ- 
ence began to be manifest in English drama. In 1559 Heywood 
published his translation of Seneca’s Troas. Several of Seneca’s 
plays were translated from that time until 1581 when the so- 
called Tenne Tragedies were published by Thomas Newton. The 
first play in English which shows the influence of classical tech- 
nique is Ferrex and Porrex, or, as it is better known, Gorboduc. 
This five-act tragedy by Norton and Sackville was produced 
before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall on January 18, 156r. 

Having in mind Seneca’s Phanisse or Thebais, the authors 
found in Goeffry of Monmouth’s chronicle, Historia Britonum, a 
story which resembles the struggles of Polynices and Eteocles for 
the throne of Thebes. In this case, Gorboduc resolves to divide 
his kingdom between his sons, Ferrex and Porrex, with the 
result that jealousy causes Ferrex to move against Porrex only 
to be slain by him. Videna, mother of the two, slays her younger 
child for murdering her favorite son, and both she and Gorboduc 
are slain by the people. All these deaths, however, occur off the 
stage. A fifth act brings on a new set of characters in order to 


202 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


draw a moral for the royal spectator, Queen Elizabeth, on the 
woes of a state in which the succession is uncertain. 

The play has some characteristics of Seneca’s technique; but 
it does not observe the unities, and no ghost arises to demand 
vengeance. The point of attack is farther from the climax than 
in the usual Senecan tragedy; but the action is almost entirely 
off the stage. Spectacle was supplied between the acts by dumb 
shows, which foreshadowed the events of the play symbolically. 
The scenes are given over to interviews between principals and 
confidants, to councils and to messengers. There is no scene 
between the two warring brothers probably because there is no 
scene between Polynices and Eteocles in the Senecan model. 
The plot is badly handled; but there is a plot, with dramatic 
events in the background. Plot had been lacking in English 
drama. Whatever may be said of the technique of Senecan 
drama, all such plays are based upon a dramatic situation; and 
it was a great help for English playwrights to come into contact 
with these classical plots in the theatre or in book form. With 
all its faults, Gorboduc is far more dramatic than anything pro- 
duced in England up to that time with the exception of Every- 
man. In comparison to Horestes, Cambises, Appius and Virginia, 
or any of the moralities in transition form, Gorboduc is the more 
dramatic. The spectator knows from the first scene what the 
play is about; the action is foreshadowed; there is suspense as to 


the outcome; and although the action is slow, the plot develops — 


to an end. The play continues for another act, but the end is 
at least a “shocker” if not tragedy. These are virtues lacking in 
English drama uninfluenced by the technique of classical tragedy. 

The personages of the play are eloquent in the wordy Senecan 
fashion, but they indulge in introspection and personal analysis 
of character. Senecan characters are one-sided and their range is 
limited, but the introspective, self-analysis of a Hamlet finds its 
origin in plays of this type. Unfortunately for the development 
of the art of character drawing in the classical drama of the 
Renaissance, the Aristotelian critics had laid down rules for 
depicting character. Basing their false deductions on Aristotle’s 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 203 


discussion of character, they held that kings, queens, counsellors, 
etc., should represent types. Classicism pays less attention to 
the individual than does romanticism. Thus in spite of the intro- 
spection of Senecan characters and their analyses of their motives, 
the réles in the tragedies are almost interchangeable. A character 
of any type in one play could be substituted for a person of the 
same type in any other play. Yet these typical personages are 
more human than the abstract automatons of the moralities. In 
the process of evolution they will become distinct entities such as 
Lear, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello. 

Even plays such as Horestes (1567), founded on a classical 
plot, are more interesting than interludes like Oueen Hester or 
King Darius (1565) drawn from Biblical sources, for Horestes 
contains more plot and the situation develops sooner. The play 
embraces much more of the story than does Greek tragedy. The 
Vice begins by introducing himself as Revenge which is plainly 
a Senecan influence. Horestes is presented as living at the court 
of Idumeus and plans to return to his:home and slay his guilty 
mother. He carries out this project as in Electra, and the story 
continues along the lines of Euripides’ Orestes, ending with the 
marriage of Horestes to Hermione. 

Pickering, the author, was more interested in presenting hand- 
to-hand fights, battles and processions which are directed “to be 
long,” than in sustaining the obligatory scenes with dramatic 
suspense. The scenes and characters from the moralities which 
still appear in these plays are excrescences to modern eyes, what- 
ever may have been the effect of their curious combination of 
moralizing and slapstick comedy on the audience of the latter 
half of the sixteenth century. The presence of comic scenes in 
tragedy, frowned upon in France, was enjoyed by English audi- 
ences; but the time was soon to come when the abstract char- 
acters of the moralities and their monotonous scenes were to 
disappear. The mixture or rather mere juxtaposition of tragedy, 
comedy and morality found in such plays as Horestes, Cambises 
(1569-1570) and Appius and Virginia (1563) was too bewilder- 
ing and artistically incongruous to last long, when the audiences 


204 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


had beheld purer forms of dramatic art. Historical and 
mythological characters, once introduced on the stage, drove the 
personifications of abstract vices and virtues out of the theatre. 

The first true tragedy to be played in England was Jocasta 
(1566). This play is a translation by Gascoigne and Kinwel- 
mersh of Dolce’s Giocasta, founded in turn upon Euripides’ 
Pheenician Women. Although the Italian play differs in certain 
details from the original, yet the English audience, which was 
present at Gray’s Inn on this occasion, saw an example of 
Euripidean technique. Though The Pheenician Women is not one 
of Euripides’ finest tragedies, yet even in this form, the play pre- 
sents a dramatic situation with many phases. The action de- 
velops with clearness and calls forth sympathy and suspense in 
a measure undreamed of by English audiences up to this time. 
Sympathetic characters, such as Jocasta and Antigone, pass 
through dramatic events culminating in a tragic ending. Heroes, 
not merely villains, suffer death, unrelieved by any hope of an 
eternal life in Heaven. Here was a new sensation for the Eng- 
lish spectator. 

Roger Ascham proclaimed in The Scholemaster (1570) the 
superiority of the Greek playwrights over Seneca in technique 
and decorum. Greek tragedies were known both in the original 
and in translations. But the art of A‘schylus, Sophocles and 
Euripides reached the English drama only in a distorted form 
in the plays of Seneca and of classic dramatists of France, such 
as Garnier, and of Italy, such as Dolce and Giraldi Cinthio. 

In 1567-1568, Gismond and Salerne was acted at the Inner 
Temple. This tragedy is founded upon the first novel of the 
fourth day of Boccaccio’s Decameron. It is possible that a stage 
version of the story of Romeo and Juliet had already been 
produced, for Brooke, the author of the poem The Tragicall 
Historye of Romeus and Juliet, says in his preface (1562) that 
he had seen the same vlot lately set forth on the stage. However, 
Gismond and Salerne is the first extant tragedy in English founded 
upon an Italian novel in which the love of a young man and 
woman is the basis of the action. 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA BOS. 


The play is constructed on classical lines, but the point of at- 
tack is farther back in the story than in more strictly Senecan 
tragedies, and the unity of time is not observed. The play be- 
gins with a prologue spoken by Cupid, borrowed from Dolce’s 
Didone. ‘The fury, Megara, opens the fourth act in canonical 
Senecan fashion. There are five acts, a chorus, and a messen- 
ger’s speech describing the death and disemboweling of the hero 
in the approved horrible fashion. The usual bloody heart of 
the lover is presented to the heroine who takes poison and dies, 
whereat her father, overcome with remorse, commits suicide. 
The action is often behind the scenes. The lovers never meet 
on the stage. The romance and poetry of Romeo and Juliet are 
supplanted by horror and wailing. The unlovely side of the 
situation is emphasized. Instead of the passionate love of a 
man and woman, a Cupid and Megara motivate the action. Yet 
in the background and behind the scenes are motives and situa- 
tions which will develop under the hands of greater artists into 
romantic tragedies such as Romeo and Juliet and Othello. 

The debt of Elizabethan tragedy to just such plays can be 
realized when one remembers that although medieval English 
drama might supply the broad framework and keep the action 
on the stage, plot and the orderly development of the action 
had to come from foreign sources. The problem before the Eng- 
lish playwrights was to get rid of the Senecan elements; to em- 
phasize the romance and the tragic beauty of such plots; and 
to make the audience love the hero and heroine instead of pity- 
ing them with feelings of horror. 

This attempt to revivify the interlude by introducing classical 
plots was a natural result of the influence of Senecan and Italian 
drama. The abstract hero of the interlude was started on the 
downward path by some external Vice. The Senecan hero was 
animated by Revenge or a Fury or even by Cupid. Thus the 
transition from the interlude to plays of the type of Appius and 
Virginia and of Cambises was easy. The action, however, was 
kept on the stage. For instance, Appius and Virginia is founded 
upon a Senecan situation. Urged on by the Vice, Appius decides 


206 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


to get possession of the virtuous Virginia by force. Rather than 
lose her honor, Virginia accepts death from the hands of her 
father who beheads her and delivers the bloody head to Appius. 
Instead of being behind the scenes, the beheading takes place 
on the stage. While there is no act division and no chorus, the 
plot is Senecan in its simplicity, its horror, and its unhappy end- 
ing so far as the innocent victim is concerned. The villains, 
Haphazard and Appius, are punished; and, in so far as poetic jus- 
tice is meted out, the play is somewhat medieval. 

Had the extraneous slapstick comedy and other situations 
belonging distinctly to the interludes dropped out of such plays 
by the process of evolution, tragedies resembling those of the 
French and Italian Renaissance in their simplicity would have 
been produced in England, although the action would have re- 
mained on the stage. Indeed, the circle of Lady Mary Sidney, 
which included Kyd, admired Garnier’s ultra-classical plays; and 
Lady Mary herself translated Marc Antoine in 1590; and in 
1594 Kyd produced a version of Cornélie. The elegiac tragedy 
of France, however, was too refined, too lacking in action in 
both senses of the word, to appeal to the usual English audi- 
ence. There were few critics in England who were whole- 
hearted classicists. Ascham and especially Sir Philip Sidney 
in his Apologie for Poetrie (ca. 1579) set forth the theories of 
classical drama; but they were accepted by the playwrights and 
the audiences only in a modified way. The classicists did not 
obtain control of the actual theatre in England. Kyd himself, 
though he belonged to the coterie surrounding Lady Mary and 
Sir Philip Sidney, produced his Spanish Tragedy (1587) which 
did much to point out the road midway between medieval and 
ultra-classical drama which the English playwrights were to fol- 
low. 

Even in the universities, the seats of classical learning, the 
Senecan form began to be modified in the plays written and acted 
in Latin. Legge divided his Richardus Tertius into three parts, 
each one of which was acted on separate nights in 1579 at 
Cambridge. The result was a combination of Senecan technique 


. a a a —s se 


Se ee ee 


ye ae ee ee eee ae ee 


ae Se ee ee 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 207 


and the construction of a chronicle play. The deaths are nar- 
rated and the messenger appears frequently; but the taste for 
spectacle inherent in the English theatre-goer of every class 
was satisfied by battles and parades. With the English humanists 
presenting such plays before students who were to become play- 
goers and even playwrights, such as young Marlowe, it is not 
strange that English drama of a decade later scarcely hesitated 
between the classical technique of The Misfortunes of Arthur 
and the broader construction of Tamburlaine or The Spanish 
Tragedy. 

Not only was the popular audience out of sympathy with cer- 
tain classical rules such as the observance of the three unities, 
but also the stage itself and the method of setting the scenes 
militated against the acceptance of the unity of place. In 
France the simultaneous stage decoration was in vogue when 
the question of the unities was under discussion even in the 
seventeenth century. Scenery representing places far distant 
from one another was juxtaposed on the stage and was visible 
to the spectators throughout the whole performance. To behold 
the proverbial “Rome and Constantinople” at the same moment 
on the stage was naturally a strain on the imagination of the 
realists in the French playhouse. But no such incongruity was 
produced by the Elizabethan stagecraft. The medieval system 
of simultaneous setting had been employed in England both in 
its movable form on floats or wagons, and in stationary form 
as in the elaborate setting for The Castle of Perseverance. But 
as travelling theatrical companies were formed and began to pre- 
sent plays in the inn-yards, the typical Elizabethan stage de- 
veloped; and this stage was introduced into the permanent 
theatres as they were built. 

The platform was divided into an inner and an outer stage. 
There was no curtain to the outer stage, which was probably 
twenty to thirty feet deep and twenty to twenty-five feet wide 
at the curtain which hung before the inner stage. A large por- 
tion of the outer stage, the apron, projected into the audience 
which surrounded it on three sides. On each side of the pro- 


208 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


cenium there was a door with a window above it. The inner 
stage behind the curtain, which could be opened and closed at 
will, was about ten to twelve feet deep, twenty to twenty-five 
feet wide and twelve feet high. A gallery or balcony was built 
over the inner stage and could be hidden or disclosed by draw- 
ing a curtain. 

This arrangement of the curtained stage made it possible to 
change not only the scene but also the scenery itself without 
incongruity. The outer stage was practically neutral ground 
representing any locality in the open air, such as a square, a 
courtyard, a field or very often no place in particular. By 
placing necessary properties on the inner stage behind the cur- 
tain, any indoor scene could be easily set or changed at will. 
The balcony was also at hand for any scene requiring the im- 
pression of height. Whereas in the French theatres the scenes 
were all set at once and were limited in number by physical 
conditions, in the English theatres there was no such restriction. 
Any scene could be revealed at any moment even with greater 
ease than on the modern stage, which, in spite of reforms, de- 
mands more scenery than the few properties used at that time. 
Certainly no better stage could have been devised for plays in 
which the unities of time, place and action were to be disregarded. 
Had the Elizabethans not possessed such a flexible stage, many 
a drama of that period might have been written so that it could 
be produced today with success, instead of failing because of 
a lack of continuity of impression. Even though the use of 
drop curtains, the revolving stage and modifications of the 
Elizabethan stage have made it possible to change scenery 
quickly, the modern audience is somewhat baffled and confused 
by the swift succession of scenes and impressions in a Shake- 
spearean play. It is not the modern stage but the modern mind 
which refuses to absorb completely an action passing through 
many phases, in many places, in many hours. 

The lack of scenery and of lighting effects was counter- 
balanced by descriptive lines sometimes of great beauty. The 
very bareness of the stage made the spoken word of great im- 


ee a ee 


" 
‘ 


oer ts: 


ENGLISH MEDIEVAL DRAMA 209 


portance. Mob scenes, processions and reviews of armies were 
the only spectacular appeal to the eye. Beyond this there is 
no evidence of the use of stage pictures either as a psychological 
or purely esthetic appeal. On the modern stage, scenery and 
lighting supply the elements of pictorial beauty and are em- 
ployed to interpret the mood as well as the atmosphere of the 
play. The spoken word is thus less important so far as descrip- 
tions are concerned, but modern dramatic art is producing plastic 
pictures of great beauty and significance. 

Such a stage was only too convenient for playwrights who did 
not know, as Sidney said, “the difference betwixt reporting and 
representing.” The chronicle play naturally flourished in such 
surroundings. Some book of history was selected by the drama- 
tist; and the period that offered the most spectacular events and 
cruel murders was dramatized in a series of scenes arranged 
chronologically. The aim was scarcely to tell a story but rather 
to juxtapose events which happened, not because one developed 
from another, but because they occurred in the same period of 
time. 

One valuable asset of dramatic art resulted from this system 
of playmaking and also from the use of histories and stories of 
many lands and ages as sources. English drama presents an 
astonishing variety of scenes on the stage. No other drama in 
any like period is so rich. Only the frequenter of modern mo- 
tion picture theatres finds unrolled before his eyes a view of so 
many episodes and situations entering into the life of man. 
This variety had come in a relatively short time to a theatre in 
which the monotonous and repetitious morality had held the 
stage; and, as years went on, the range of subjects and scenes 
increased, until Shakespeare gave his dramatic portrayal of all 
human life. 

But how were these episodes to be welded into a single unified 
framework? How was the “historie play” to become less of a 
history and more of a play? ‘The pure Senecan drama was not 
accepted by the public; but in this form of dramatic art and in 
the influence of the Italian novella there were certain factors 


210 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


which were acceptable to the theatre-goers and which worked 
favorably upon the technique of popular drama. The Senecan 
motive of vengeance tends toward unification and was effec- 
tively operative in Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy. The importance 
of a central figure had also been illustrated by classical drama, 
and this was a strong factor in giving a broad unity of action 
to the plays of Marlowe. Finally, the Italian novella offered 
dramatic situations stripped of non-essential details and of epi- 
sodes which obscured such moments in contemporary prosy 
chronicles. To make an effective dramatization of the story of 
Romeo and Juliet or of Othello requires much less skill and 
artistic insight than to discover and dig out the tragedy of Mac- 
beth from the clay of Holinshed’s Chronicles. 

About 1587, Kyd composed The Spanish Tragedy. It achieved 
a deserved success, for it is the best example of theatrical art in 
England up to the time of Shakespeare, who was indebted to 
Kyd for much of his technique. The plot is based upon the 
Senecan motive of revenge represented by an abstract character 
which enters with the ghost of Andrea in. a prologue inspired by 
Thyestes. These two characters act as a chorus; and, at the end 
of the play, they pronounce an epilogue. Their presence gives 
the whole series of scenes a kind of fictitious unity, for the plot 
purports to represent the retribution for the death of Andrea in 
a battle which has already occurred before the play begins. 
Unfortunately for the dramatic value of the device, the spectator 
has little interest in the death of Andrea and cares not at all 
whether his death on the field of battle is avenged or not. An- 
drea was loved by Bel-Imperia, the heroine; but she, immedi- 
ately and with no artistic motivation, turns her affections to 
Horatio who monopolizes the sympathy of the audience, so far 
as the character of the young lover is concerned. His murder 
at the hands of Lorenzo, Bel-Imperia’s brother, is the death 
which the spectators wish to see avenged by his father Hieron- 
imo. The motive of revenge in the case of Andrea is purely 
external. In regard to Horatio, it springs from the father’s heart. 
The theatrical Senecan motive thus becomes dramatic. Kyd 


ae we 


SS es a ee ee ae 


KYD 211 


wished to open the play with a ghost. He could have chosen the 
ghost of Horatio; but he also wished to place many events on 
the stage in conformity to English taste. He therefore selected 
an early point of attack and introduced the ghost of Andrea. 
But the point of attack is too late, if we are to be interested in 
Andrea, and too early, if our sympathy for Horatio is to be the 
point of departure. The interest of the spectator in the dramatic 
possibilities is fully assured when Bel-Imperia has fallen in love 
with Horatio and is loved by the captured prince, Balthazar, 
who is seconded in his unrequited passion by Lorenzo. 

These circumstances cause the spectator to look forward, at 
least; and when Horatio is murdered, Hieronimo’s vow to dis- 
cover and punish the assassins of his son arouses suspense in a 
manner and to a degree hitherto unknown in English drama. 
The vengeance is delayed; but as Professor Boas points out: 
“The cardinal weakness in the play which prevents it ranking 
among dramatic masterpieces, is Kyd’s failure in an adequate 
psychological analysis of the Marshal’s motives for this delay. 
Inaction only becomes dramatic material when, as in the case 
of the Shakespearean Hamlet, it is shown to be rooted in some 
disease of character or will.” But the delay is theatrically effec- 
tive. At first it is caused by the fact that Hieronimo does not 
know, hardly suspects the identity of the murderers. Then he 
distrusts Bel-Imperia’s letter in which she denounces the guilty 
men. When the intercepted letter from one of the accomplices 
confirms his suspicions, he is on the point of demanding justice 
in plain terms, but is evidently cowed by Lorenzo. At last come 
sickness of heart and mind and self-upbraiding for his delay. It 
is a first sketch of the original portrait of Hamlet, drawn probably 
by Kyd, to which Shakespeare added the strokes of dramatic 
genius. In these progressive steps there is a sweep of climactic 
action which culminates in the play within the play. Kyd fore- 
shadows the tragedy but does not anticipate the successive coups 
de théatre in which the feigned avenging murders and suicide 
turn out to be real. 

Although much of the exposition is in narrative form and the 


212 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


battle in which Andrea was killed is described in classical fash- 
ion, most of the action is represented. There are several scenes— 
notably those at the Portuguese court—which do not even de- 
serve reporting, much less actual representation. But in the 
succession of scenes, there are many situations handled with 
deftness and melodramatic power. The love scene between Bel- 
Imperia and Horatio in the bower shows that Lyly’s graceful 
dialogue was not falling in vain upon Kyd’s ears. It is a scene 
in which sympathy goes out to innocent lovers—a rare situa- 
tion in tragedy up to that time, be it Greek or Senecan, English 
or French. The ensuing murder of the lover in the presence of 
his mistress by her brother and her jealous admirer, the finding 
of the body: of his son by Hieronimo plucked from his “naked 
bed,” the entrance of the mother, form a series of effective scenes. 
Throughout the rest of the play there are too many surprising 
toups de thédtre; Hieronimo takes a handkerchief from his 
pocket and finds it to be a cloth stained with Horatio’s blood; he 
suddenly discloses the body of his son to show why he has slain 
the prince and Lorenzo; he makes a sign for a knife to mend 
his pen when he has bitten out his tongue, and stabs the Duke 
and himself with the weapon. Theatrical and sensational as 
they may be, it was from such striking tricks that Shakespeare 
learned to handle such dramatic actions as the suicide of Othello. 

Kyd _ skilfully combined a secondary action with the main 
plot. Pedringano, Bel-Imperia’s servant, betrays to Lorenzo the 
secret of her love and her tryst with Horatio. He also is an 
accomplice, together with Serberine, in the murder. Lest these 
wretches betray him, Lorenzo incites Pedringano to slay Ser- 
berine; Pedringano does so, is captured and condemned to die 
by Hieronimo himself. Lorenzo has no desire to save him but 
pretends to send him a pardon in a box. The grisly jesting on 
the part of Pedringano, who thinks his life is safe just before 
he is hanged, foreshadows such scenes as the Porter’s ghastly 


joking in Macbeth. The effect is not comic relief but grotesque 


intensification of horror. Finally, the letter of Pedringano to 
Lorenzo discloses the truth. In no serious play up to this 


ON a PS ae ~~ 


ee ee = 
SE ee 


KYD 213 


time had such artistry been employed. The sub-plot in Lyly’s 
plays had only a tenuous connection, if any, with the main 
story. The moralities and chronicles were most inept in this 
respect. To Kyd belongs the credit of showing future play- 
wrights how to handle striking situations and construct a plot 
which arouses suspense and sympathy. 

His depiction of characters is not so successful; yet even in 
this respect he shows an advance over his predecessors. The hero 
is Hieronimo. He becomes prominent too late in the play; but 
he is a real personality in comparison to the stock characters 
of earlier plays. He develops into a different being through a 
crisis which he himself directs and plans. He suffers, where 
other heroes merely wail or rage. He is opposed by a somewhat 
Machiavellian villain in the person of Lorenzo and a lesser vil- 
lain in Balthazar, neither of whom is drawn with the subtlety 
of Iago. However, they serve their purpose of actively oppos- 
ing the protagonist in obligatory scenes, not developed to the 
utmost, but of a kind rarely represented in Senecan drama. 
Bel-Imperia and Horatio enlist our sympathy, not merely pity. 
The mother of Horatio is only sketched. Kyd did not realize 
the finer shades of psychology inherent in these rdles nor did he 
make character the keystone of his dramatic structure. That 
important contribution to dramatic art in England was made by 
Christopher Marlowe. 

Such plays as Preston’s Cambises purport to be the representa- 
tion of the life of a hero. The title page of the printed version de- 
scribes the play with surprising accuracy, as follows: “A Lament- 
able Tragedy mixed full of pleasant mirth containing the Life 
of Cambises King of Percia from the beginning of his kingdom 
unto his Death, his one good deede of execution, after that, many 
wicked deeds and tyrannous murders committed by and through 
him, and last of all, his odious death by God’s Justice appointed, 
Done in such order as foloweth.” 

It is not clear why these deeds were “done in such order.” 
Any other order would have been just as ineffective. The play 
is no more dramatic than is real life unrefined by art. Even the 


214 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


death of Cambises lacks a gleam of tragedy, for he dies from a 
wound received when his sword jumps out of its scabbard as he is 
mounting a horse. The other incidents of the story are equally 
unrelated to each other. It seems actually curious that one 
should follow the other, even though they happen to one man. 
There is no unity or climactic action. The sole advance in 
technique over the diffuse plays of the strictly medieval period 
lies in the tendency to drop out scenes which are absolutely 
trivial. The writers of serious plays still juxtaposed scenes of 
unrelated slapstick, vulgar comedy and supposedly tragic 
events; but, under the influence of Seneca, they tended to select 
for representation shocking deeds and to leave out minor events. 
The interest was not focussed on any one crisis. Rigorous selec- 
tion of scenes according to set rules or traditions was never prac- 
ticed by popular English playwrights. | 

Marlowe’s university education was not without effect upon 
him as a playwright. He dramatized, perhaps as his first play, 
the story of Dido and Aineas, a popular theme among classicists. 
In spite of the non-observance of the unities of time and place, 
his Dido is classical in so far as it deals with one action: the 
love of Dido and AXneas. Marlowe follows strictly the develop- 
ment of a plot which reaches a climax and a conclusion. Struc- 
turally, the play is closer to the usual modern form of drama than 
any other Elizabethan play. With the exception of the passages 
in which the fall of Troy is narrated, the play could almost be 
classed as well made. 

Whether it was too well made to be popular with the audi- 
ence or not, history does not record. At any rate, Marlowe chose 
the looser form of the chronicle play for his'other dramatic 
writings. But instead of putting into dialogue a series of events 
which happened in temporal order, he selected a hero and showed 
how these events were caused by his ruling passion. In Tambur- 
laine, it is the hero’s lust for power and victory; in The Jew of 
Malta, the greed of gold together with desire for revenge; in 
Edward II, the guilty passion of Edward for Gaveston. His 


MARLOWE 215 


heroes are often exaggerated beyond the limits of artistry. Their 
fault lies not in being inhuman but unhuman. 

Yet Marlowe’s method gave these plays a kind of unity. One 
knows what to expect from his heroes. At last, in English 
drama, the character and not the author is the motive power of 
the action. The difference in general between Marlowe’s heroes 
and those of Greek tragedy lies in the fact that his characters 
are always governed by the same emotions and shape events in 
response to one or two primitive, brutal passions. The Greek 
heroes are victims of some error of judgment which starts an 
avalanche of inescapable consequences. When a Greek hero 
makes the initial decision, he becomes a human being struggling, 
often in vain, with adversity. The Marlovian hero has a very 
active will. He does things, many things; but his deeds have a 
monotonous similarity because he is a criminal, and while his 
crimes may be various they are not varied. He increases his 
passion in a climactic manner, but he is too much of a villain to 
be subtle. His character does not take on different shades in the 
face of various events. He causes events; but the reciprocal 
influence of events and character is lacking in Marlowe’s plays. 
His heroes are practically interchangeable. Tamburlaine, Guise, 
Barabas, Faustus could all perform each other’s deeds with the 
same efficiency. The soliloquies express the same sentiments 
in the same manner; but to interchange Romeo, Hamlet, Iago, 
Macbeth or Othello would destroy the whole framework and 
dialogue of the plays. To put Romeo in Hamlet’s situation in 
the first act of Hamlet would make a wholly different tragedy ; 
but Tamburlaine in the situation of Barabas would scarcely alter 
the action of The Jew of Malta. | 

One reason for the one-sidedness of Marlowe’s characters lies 
in the frequent use of soliloquies and asides, in which the char- 
acter thinks aloud, but is not overheard. Such a procedure is 
not to be criticized on the ground that it is unlifelike. There 
are certain thoughts which no one speaks just as he thinks 
them. Either drama will admit the convention of the soliloquy 
or else it will not represent certain states of the human soul. 


216 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART | 


There is no theatrical reason why Hamlet should not speak his 
soliloquy on death in the presence of another character; but it 
would be psychologically false for Hamlet to discuss suicide in 
this way with anyone. To all except a few belated realists, a 
soliloquy is legitimate or illegitimate in proportion as it is psycho- 
logically fitting and dramatically effective. 

On the other hand, just as a character can be disclosed in rela- 

tion to events, it can be still more clearly and delicately revealed 
in relation to other personalities affected by the same events. 
The scenes between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, Othello and 
Iago, Hamlet and his mother, Phédre and her nurse would be 
irreparable losses if they were replaced by alternate soliloquies. 
Fine shades of emotion and character are brought out by the 
fact that the dramatist must rely upon delicate impressions and 
sensations. We do not know so much about a: character who 
announces in a monologue or an aside that he is a wicked per- 
son, as we do from seeing that character give the impression 
or sensation of wickedness in his relation to other characters 
in certain situations. Such scenes are lacking in Marlowe’s 
plays. He depends too much upon direct information given in 
soliloquies and asides. He has antagonists in his plays but he 
does not show the protagonists in relation to the antagonists as 
does Shakespeare in Othello or Hamlet. Marlowe tends to pre- 
sent only one side of the conflict at one time; whereas in Othello, 
Shakespeare presents both sides of the conflict in the scene be- 
tween Othello and Iago. 
In a scene between Barabas and Lodovick in the second act of 
The Jew of Malta, Barabas constantly explains his real emotions 
and purpose in asides to the audience. Most of the irony inherent 
in the situation is lost. There is no subtlety in the dialogue. The 
scene is undramatically clear. Instead of receiving delicate im- 
pressions and sensations, the audience is told plain facts. 

Marlowe’s contribution to English dramatic art, however, is 
the unification of events into a plot which develops in relation 
to a great personality who goes down to defeat. Marlowe ac- 
cepted the structure of the chronicle play. He did not show 


GREENE 217 


merely the downfall of a superman. He placed his point of at- 
tack so that we see the protagonist in a state of prosperity. We 
watch him succeed in his undertakings because of his all-powerful 
passion for power, and then behold his downfall because of this 
same passion. The hero does not arouse sympathy; but he does 
command admiration accompanied by shudders. 

The writer of a chronicle play sought for a series of striking 
events to present on the stage. He did not seek for a great 
character or a plot. Marlowe became interested in a man pre- 
eminent because of some ruling passion and wrote a play about 
him. Kyd was evidently moved to dramatize the story of The 
Spanish Tragedy because of the melodramatic plot. The Italian 
novella was attractive to dramatists not primarily because of 
characters, but because it contained a plot. The novella was 
short. Unlike histories or chronicles, it did not contain a vast 
amount of material either non-essential or unsuitable for dra- 
matic treatment. The novella aimed to give artistic pleasure, 
not to inform or to teach or even to moralize to any unfortunate 
extent. Whether the novelist had based his story on fact or 
myth, he had already discarded non-essentials and had com- 
pressed the incidents into a unified story. He had performed 
a task which many an English playwright often failed to per- 
form. 

The growing skill in plotting is noticeable in Greene’s Friar 
Bacon and Friar Bungay (ca. 1589) and in his James IV (ca. 
1590). His plot begins to unfold immediately; and, by means 
of foreshadowing, he is able to project the mind of the spectator 
forward and create suspense. He excels both Kyd and Marlowe 
in this respect. Greene places on the stage some unnecessary 
scenes such as that of the Lawyer, the Merchant and the Divine 
in the fifth act of James IV ; but most of his scenes are effective. 
He does not emulate Kyd in describing battles. The influence 
of the technique of classical tragedy is scarcely discernible. He 
shows the audience what is happening in scenes which are act- 
able. His handling of the scenes of magic in Friar Bacon and 
Friar Bungay is more dramatic than the similar effects in Mar- 


218 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


lowe’s Faustus, which are merely spectacular or, at most, only 
theatrical. In Greene’s play, the scene of the wooing of Mar- 
garet by Lacy is made visible from afar to Prince Edward by 
means of Bacon’s magical glass. Just as Friar Bungay is about 
to marry the lovers, Bacon strikes him dumb. Thus the magical 
element conducts the plot at this moment, if not in the conjuring 
scene in which Bacon gets the better of Vandermast. 

Both plays show a new tendency towards the introduction of 
romantic love into plots of English plays. The characters are 
historical, but the love element introduces complications into 
James IV which entirely overshadow the historical element. The 
situations common to the chronicle play are replaced by scenes 
of a very different character except in the fifth act. The roman- 
tic scenes.and the scenes of necromancy in Friar Bacon and 
Friar Bungay arouse an interest quite different from that of the 
chronicle play. Woven together as they are, they produce sus- 
/ pense, surprise and coups de thédtre in an amount approached 
only by Kyd. 

Even Kyd and Marlowe often make the impression of having 
chosen scenes which tell the story. The scenes in these two 
plays by Greene not only tell the story but also are effective in 
themselves. One would pay attention to them, were they played 
separately. Greene brings his principal characters face to face; 
and they converse instead of merely talking in asides in each 
other’s presence. The soliloquy is used sparingly. His charac- 
ters and scenes would act well. Actors would find greater possi- 
bility of subtle characterization in his dialogue than in the dia- 
logue interspersed with explanatory lines directed to the audi- 
ence. 

The ability to make the action rise to a climax was also pos- 
sessed by Greene. The Spanish Tragedy and Marlowe’s plays 
reach climaxes, but they are slow in starting. The spectator is 
not exactly sure how he should feel in regard to individual char- 
acters or what he may expect of them. From the first lines of 


these two plays by Greene, interest is aroused; and, degree by 4 


degree, it deepens into suspense. There is a cumulative sense 


GREENE 219 


of the action rising to a climax. Nash rightly placed him above 
his contemporaries in “plotting of plays.” 

Greene, even more successfully than Kyd, draws the many 
threads of his plots together into a whole. The story is very 
complicated in the play, but there is an interrelationship be- 
tween the different episodes. The two or three series of events 
do not merely take place during the same time. Friar Bacon’s 
magic affects the fate of Margaret. It would be impossible to 
suppress any part of James IV without seriously impairing the 
remainder. | 

The plot of the latter play is derived from an Italian story 
by Giraldi Cinthio who also dramatized it in his Arrenopia. 
Greene opens his play when James IV has just married Dorothea. 
The King, however, immediately declares his love to the countess 
Ida. In order to marry Ida he lays plans to have Queen Doro- 
thea murdered. She tries to escape disguised as a man, is 
wounded by the assassin, but is rescued by Sir Cuthbert Ander- 
son, who takes her to his home. Lady Anderson falls in love with 
Dorothea, believing her to be a knight. James IV believes her 
dead and repents his crimes when he hears of Ida’s marriage to 
an English gentleman. The King of England, Dorothea’s father, 
hearing that she has been murdered, comes to avenge her death. 
The discovery that she is alive ends the play. 

Giraldi Cinthio begins his play after his heroine Arrenopia 
(Dorothea) has been rescued. She is known as the knight Agno- 
risto, and Semne (Lady Anderson) is in love with the supposed 
gentleman. Her husband is jealous. Partenia (Ida) never ap- 
pears. The principal characters do not meet on the stage until 
the final scene. Successive monologues or else scenes between 
primary and secondary characters fill five long acts. The iden- 
tity of Agnoristo is inartistically concealed from the audience. 
Suspense is sacrificed to surprise. Everything is sacrificed to 
unnecessary talk about the question of marital honor. 

Greene’s play has no such thesis. English drama of this period 
does not deal with problems of human life. The interlude had 
done so in a monotonous manner. Shakespeare will finally lift 


220 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the play on revenge into a study of human psychology in Hamlet. 
He will find human problems of ambition, jealousy, paternal 
weakness where his predecessors saw only a story. 

When Shakespeare began to write for the English stage about 
1590, he had as models many forms of drama. The audience, 
for which he was to write, was not predisposed to accept any 
rules of classicism. It was content to have a story unfolded in 
any manner that rouses the emotions peculiar to the theatre. 
The audience was educated dramatically, but it did not allow 
theories of art to stand in the way of complete emotional enjoy- 
ment of a play.. There was no deep reverence for the ‘‘ancients.” 
The Elizabethan stage was best suited of all stages for telling a 
story. It had enough machinery to present any scene at any 
moment but not so much as to delay the performance for an in- 
stant. All the traditions of the theatre and of playwriting tended 
in the direction of freedom. Shakespeare knew the classical 
-Tules, but he did not allow them to keep him from telling a 
story on the stage in a manner that would seem effective to an 
audience that came to see as well as to hear a play. 

The medieval influence overshadows all others in Shakespeare’s 
chronicle plays or histories. Dr. Johnson defined a history as 
“a series of actions with no other than chronological succession, 
independent on each other and without any tendency to regulate 
the conclusion. His [Shakespeare’s] histories being neither 
tragedy nor comedy are not subject to any of their laws; nothing 
more is necessary to all the praise which they expect, than that 
the changes of action be so prepared as to be understood, that 
the incidents be various and affecting and the characters con- 
sistent, natural and distinct.” 

Interesting as these plays must have been to contemporary 
audiences because of the historical element and their pageantry, 
they are of little importance in the development of dramatic 
art. They show events in chronological succession. At times 
the events are held together by the presence of such characters 
as Richard III or Hotspur. But such a series of events hardly 


CT oy ee 


SHAKESPEARE 221 


constitutes a plot. There are climaxes and peripeteias, but they 
consist of such incidents as a king being deposed or dying and 
another proclaimed as his successor. The struggle is a clash of 
civil war. No grave, human principal is involved. The plays 
often begin with the news of a revolt against the king. No 
dramatic principle can be discovered in regard to the reasons 
for the selection of scenes, except that they show the progress 
of the revolt and its outcome. There is little preparation and 
foreshadowing. The events are understandable to the spectator, 
but unless he knows the course of history little suspense is 
aroused. Typical scenes are the reception of ambassadors, the 
defiance of the emissaries, the sentencing of traitors to death, 
musings of the hero before a battle, the battles themselves, the 
victory or defeat ; while the whole is more or less interlarded with 
comic scenes which have little or nothing to do with the main 
action. The scenes, taken as separate units, are often admirable 
in their different effects; but, taken as a whole, they lack a 
spiritual or psychological motivation without which drama be- 
comes merely what these plays are: a representation of events 
in which the dramatist has turned “the accomplishment of many 
years into an hour glass.” 

Shakespeare’s art was a combination of medieval and Italian 
elements. Writing for a medieval, elastic stage he was primarily 
interested in representing a story by portraying most of the 
events before the audience. The complex plot, which he used in 
the majority of his plays, is a heritage of Renaissance drama 
rather than of medieval art. There is no evidence that he was 
inspired primarily to write a play because of a desire to treat 
a certain theme, problem or character. His point of departure 
was a story that would form a background for effective scenes of 
comedy and lyric beauty, or a story which could be represented 
at least theatrically, if not dramatically. He sacrificed the study 
of character to the presentation of his story, if it were necessary. 
His plays differ from Renaissance tragedy and comedy, not so 
much in subject matter or in the devices and situations used in 
the plot, as in the fact that he presented on the stage most of 


222 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the scenes which arise in connection with the initial cause. 
Renaissance drama suppressed many scenes and presented only 
the comic or tragic reactions on the part of the characters to the 
events. 

An early example of the importance which Shakespeare at- 
tached to the plot is found in his adaptation of the Menechmi. 
The Plautine play has a complex situation which arises from an 
intricate plot, but the plot is kept in the background. Only 
those scenes which arouse laughter were selected by Plautus for 
presentation. 

After the manner of the Italian writers of comedy, Shakespeare 
complicated the situation by introducing a second pair of twins, 
the two Dromios. But his most original and striking develop- 
ment of the plot is the creation of the réles of AZgeon, Luciana 
and the Abbess. Their presence produces a romantic atmosphere 
wholly lacking in the Plautine play. Had Shakespeare based his 
comedy on a narrative version of this story, he might well have 
used the inclusive framework which he employed in The Winter’s 
Tale, and have had the point of attack far enough back to show 
how the twins were separated. Unless he was influenced by 
special considerations, Shakespeare selected a point of attack 
early in the narrative, in the manner of the medieval playwright. 
In this case his immediate source was probably an English trans- 
lation of the Menechmi which he may have read in manuscript 
form. He did not alter the point of attack of his source; but 
he discarded the formal prologue and substituted a dramatic 
incident which gives the audience all necessary details and arouses 
sympathy and suspense. Inspired, perhaps, by a similar situa- 
tion in The Supposes, Shakespeare introduced A‘geon, the father 
of the twins, who has come to Ephesus and who falls under the 
law that unless he can pay a ransom of a thousand marks he 
shall die. The play opens with a scene in court in which this 
sentence is passed. This incident gives A°geon the opportunity 
to plead in his own behalf by telling of the loss of his wife and 
one of the boys whom he has sought for years. In this semi- 
tragic fashion the exposition is given dramatically, and a serious 


a a Pee 


SHAKESPEARE 223 


interest is supplied which was not emphasized in the original 
play. 

The character of Luciana, the sister of Adriana, furnishes a 
touch of romance as well as comedy, for Antipholus of Syracuse 
falls in love with her; and when the mistaken identity is cleared 
up, their marriage is foreshadowed. ‘The discovery that the 
Abbess is the wife of A°geon is a coup de théatre which is entirely 
romantic. Thus not only is the plot complicated by the increased 
number of chances in which the mistaken identity can supply 
scenes of comedy, but also by romantic situations which arouse 
sentiment. 

The disguise of Viola in Twelfth Night is a device used in 
Italian comedy. On the Italian stage such disguises give rise 
to indelicate situations and humor. Shakespeare emphasized the 
_ love story and produced romantic situations through such devices. 
By bringing the love story on the stage, he made the plot a 
prominent element instead of a mere source of humorous scenes. 

With an audience that enjoyed complex plots, with a stage 
well fitted to hold them, it is natural to find Shakespeare drama- 
tizing intricate situations from almost the beginning to the end 
of his career. His point of departure was plot, and therefore 
he constructed his play so that he could present the story with 
the greatest dramatic effect. Many playwrights before his time 
had told stories. Marlowe had portrayed character especially, 
and had produced powerful, heroic dialogue. Lyly had refined 
the lighter characters of the stage and had furnished models of 
graceful, witty dialogue. Shakespeare excelled all his prede- 
cessors and contemporaries in depicting character in action and 
in writing dramatic lines; but he excelled them especially in 
telling a story dramatically, or at least theatrically. He also 
tells the story clearly, and never approaches the pitfall of 
obscurity into which Spanish writers and Frenchmen under their 
influence often fell. Shakespeare would have agreed with 
Aristotle that the action is the most important element of a play, 
while character is secondary. Whatever obscurity in his plays 
has baffled critics for three centuries arises in connection with the 


224 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


characters. If his plays are analyzed on the basis of plot as a 
point of departure, they are found to be the work of a masterful 
playwright who made a logical and complete use of the flexibility 
of the stage for which he wrote. . 

If the plots of Shakespeare were of “trifling importance” to 
him as Furness and other critics hold, it is difficult to understand 
why the playwright wove four stories into the plot of The Mer- 
chant of Venice, introduced the parallel action of the house of 
Gloster into King Lear, devised enough incidents in the first act 
of Titus Andronicus to fill out a whole play, and made the plot 
of the Two Gentlemen of Verona more intricate than the story 
in the source. If Shakespeare’s plays are compared with their 
sources, it is found that he clarified and vivified many motives; 
but, in the majority of cases, he introduced more complications 
than were in the original version or at least retained so many 
situations that few of his plays, such as As You Like It, can be 
‘said to contain a slim narrative. His simplification is clarifica- 
tion, but is by no means a reduction of complexity. 

In dramatizing narratives, Shakespeare chose an early opening. 
In The Merchant of Venice nothing of importance has happened 
before the first scene. Romeo and Juliet and Othello open where 
the actual stories begin in the narrative. In reading Holinshed’s 
Chronicles one feels that the story of Macbeth commences when 
the incident of his meeting the three witches is described, and 
that scene comes early in the play. In no case has the dramatist 
opened his play after an incident has happened which ought to 
have been represented. To ascribe this practice of the early 
point of attack to his disregard of the unities is to give a negative 
reason. He was primarily interested in constructing a play 
which would represent a story without having to report or de- 
scribe previous events in the plot. | 

As a result of this method, his scenes of exposition are clear 
and gripping. The spectator does not have to listen to intricate 
explanations and burden his memory with many details. From 
what is seen and heard one grasps the situation and assumes the 
correct mood in which to follow the ensuing action. 


eS ee ee ee ee ee ee oe 


SHAKESPEARE 225 


In Two Gentlemen of Verona the opening scene is somewhat 
classical with its explanatory dialogue between Valentine and 
Proteus and the following conversation between Proteus and 
Speed, the servant. The first two scenes of The Merchant of 
Venice are also deliberate in their movement. We learn of Bas- 
sanio’s request for money so that he may woo Portia; and then 
the lady herself is disclosed to us in a scene with her waiting- 
gentlewoman N erissa. Classical in form as it is, this scene be- 
tween a heroine and a friend is far from its sordid Italian proto- 
types in poetic beauty and charming piquancy. The third scene 
instantly grips the attention as the sinister Shylock and Antonio 
make the astounding bargain of the money loaned with a pound 
of flesh as security. When this scene is over, the exposition has 
gradually merged into action with preparation for future de- 
velopment and foreshadowing of disaster for someone. 

In Cymbeline, two protatic characters give a short explanation 
of the loss of the King’s children and of the marriage of Imogen 
to Posthumus against her father’s wish. The banishment of 
Posthumus by the King is then represented and with this touch- 
ing incident of the parting lovers the story begins to unfold. 

The opening monologue of Rickard III is due to the influence 
of Renaissance classical tragedy, in which the villainous hero 
explains his fell designs directly to the audience. The trans- 
formation of another method of exposition of classical tragedy 
is exemplified in the opening of Hamlet. Instead of having the 
Ghost appear and demand vengeance in an undramatic mono- 
logue explaining the past events, Shakespeare dramatizes the 
scene with the sure touch of an artist. Hamlet opens as the 
watch is being changed. Horatio asks if “this thing’ has ap- 
peared again tonight. In a moment, “the thing” comes. It 
resembles the dead King. They try to speak to it; but it is 
silent; and it disappears. Thus Shakespeare creates the at- 
mosphere of the supernatural and a mood of wonderment and 
suspense. In the second scene, Hamlet dominates the stage, 
shedding over all his brooding melancholy and a grief which 
seems natural and yet to cover something—some vague suspicion 


226 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


too awful to be spoken or even thought of in words. Finally 
in the fourth scene, comes the meeting on the battlements of 
Hamlet and the Ghost. The story of the murder is told step by 
step with nerve-racking deliberateness. The spectator lives and 
feels through Hamlet’s tortured mind. Indeed, this is one of 
the rare scenes in drama in which a member of the audience, 
learning the truth with the hero, ceases to be a mere spectator 
and becomes almost a part of the hero’s own personality. Had 
Shakespeare placed the point of attack so as to include a rep- 
resentation of the murder of Hamlet’s father, the audience, 
already in possession of that fact, would only watch Hamlet 
make the discovery and would lose the deep fellow feeling which 
_enthrals it. 

When Shakespeare used a play as a source, as in the case of 
The Comedy of Errors and King Lear, he did not change the 
, point of attack of the original. In all probability the original 
Hamlet opened with the appearance of a ghost. If Kyd was 
the author of the first version, it is reasonably sure that he had 
used the Senecan opening of a ghost, especially since he had 
practically dragged in a ghost to begin The Spanish Tragedy. 
Thus Shakespeare seems again to have left the point of attack 
unchanged when using a play as a source. The whole construc- 
tion and much of the dramatic beauty of his Hamlet are due to 
this indirect influence of Senecan tragedy. 

Although these opening scenes of Hamlet are the most im- 
pressive of all his expository scenes because of the poignant 
situation, Shakespeare is no less skilful in handling other initial 
situations. He generally discloses an incident which not only 
appeals to the eye and the ear, but also strikes the keynote 
of the whole play. He creates atmosphere immediately, and 
throws the audience into the correct mood. 

Thus in Macbeth we do not know exactly the significance of 
the witches when the curtain rises; but they are gruesome, awful 
in appearance and in their strange speech broken by flashes of 
lightning and rumblings of thunder. Certainly no spectator 
has ever failed to come under the supernatural, tragic spell 


SHAKESPEARE 22% 


which pervades the whole drama. This is the short prelude. 
In the next scene we learn of the victory and that Macbeth 
is to be greeted with the title of thane of Cawdor. Then the 
witches appear again and they hail Macbeth as thane of Cawdor 
and as “king hereafter.” With Macbeth, the spectator turns his » 
thoughts to the future fraught with prophecy. In Holinshed’s 
Chronicles the first scene of the witches does not appear; but 
Shakespeare, with unerring skill, prepares the mind for the full 
emotional effect of the third scene by having introduced the 
weird sisters at the beginning. We know they will come to 
the heath, “when the battle’s lost and won,” to greet Macbeth. 
The suspense and supernatural awe are undiminished by vague 
surprise. A comparison of these three scenes in the order in which 
they come with the lifeless narrative paragraph from which they 
sprang bears witness to Shakespeare’s magic skill as a dramatist. 

In quite another mood but no less effectively, Shakespeare 
shows us the background in Romeo and Juliet. The curtain rises 
on a public place in Verona. A duel caused by the enmity of 
the Capulets and Montagues will bring tragedy to the young 
lovers. Within a few moments the servants of the two houses 
are engaged in a picturesque street brawl which prepares for 
the duel between Romeo and Mercutio. One is enveloped by 
the atmosphere of the impetuosity of the Italian Renaissance 
when flashing swords are hotly and carelessly drawn at a word. 
Though the meeting of Romeo and Juliet—the mainspring of 
the plot—comes at the end of the act, the knowledge that 
Romeo is going to the ball at the house of his enemies is enough 
to hold the attention until we see the boy and girl on under 
the spell of romantic love. 

Even more swiftly, the opening scenes of Othello unfold the 
situation by a series of incidents which strike the keynote of 
the tragedy. It is night in a street in Venice. Iago, stung to 
action by the appointment of Cassio as Othello’s lieutenant, 
begins his slanderous revenge by arousing, Brabantio from his 
sleep and telling him of Othello’s marriage to Desdemona. Then 
he slinks away, as Brabantio comes forth. It is a play dealing 


228 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


with slander, sly insinuations which have a baffling appearance 
of truth, and jealousy which wrecks the happiness of a strange 
marriage. This scene in which Brabantio is aroused from his 
bed and told of the marriage of his daughter in brutal words is 
in cruel harmony with the tragedy which is to unfold. 

In King Lear, the first scene contains the initial cause of 
the catastrophe. When Lear divides his kingdom between his 
elder daughters who flatter him and breaks out in blind rage 
against the too sincere Cordelia and refuses to harken to the 
loyal Kent, the tragedy which arises and the characters involved 
in it are presented in swift, powerful strokes. The avalanche of 
misfortune begins to move slowly but inexorably as the scene is 
enacted. Whatever happens during the rest of this vast tragedy 
is. traceable to this first scene of exposition. 

In Coriolanus and Julius Cesar, plays dealing with the for- 
tunes of a city in which the volatile crowd was to be reckoned 
with, the first scenes present the mob in action. Shakespeare 
is not merely creating local color and atmosphere, but is pre- 
senting in a colorful manner an important element in the situa- 
tion. Instead of being a picturesque background, the mob is a 
force almost beyond human control. In The Tempest, the plot 
could be followed easily without the opening’ scene of the storm 
at sea; but again, this scene is more than a picturesque incident. 
It grips the attention by its stirring action and arouses some 
suspense, and therefore makes the following scene of exposition 
far more interesting, because the spectator, like Miranda, has 
seen the brave vessel dashed to pieces and is desirous of know- 
ing the why and wherefore. One listens with real interest to 
many expository details given later by Prospero which would 
have aroused merely curiosity had the first scene been omitted. 

Thus the opening scenes of Shakespeare’s finer dramas are 
beautiful examples of exposition combined with a stirring inci- 
dent which appeals to the eye as well as to the ear. They are 
picturesque even on a stage which had neither lighting system 
nor painted scenery. They furnish the correct atmosphere, and 
put the audience into the correct frame of mind. They contain 


a a a 


SHAKESPEARE 229 


many of the motives of the plot and generally show principal 
characters in action. They sound the keynote of the whole 
drama and cause the spectator to look toward the future with 
suspense. Neither Kyd nor Marlowe ever approached Shakes- 
peare in the dramatic effect of opening scenes. 

In preparation and foreshadowing Shakespeare is also pre- 
eminent. The plays of his contemporaries progress in an unex- 
pected manner. In Shakespeare’s theatre one may be disap- 
pointed or even deceived as to the outcome; but one always 
knows what to hope and what to fear as the action develops. 
The disappointment and the deception are not felt on artistic 
grounds, but arise from hoping against hope that the impend- 
ing tragedy may be averted. Not only are situations in the 
opening scenes fraught with possibilities of disaster, but there 
is constant foreshadowing of events which do or do not take 
place. Romeo fears, as he goes to the Capulet’s ball: 


Some consequence yet hanging in the stars 
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date 
With this night’s revel. 


These lines are somewhat obvious foreshadowing; but in King 
Lear the first suggestions of Lear’s possible madness are very 
subtle. The old King’s sudden outburst of wrath and his lack 
of judgment betray an absence of self-control. In the second 
act when Goneril has turned against him, he prays that his anger 
may be noble, that he may not weep. Then his last words as 
he leaves betray his lurking fear: “O Fool! I shall go mad.” 
Again in the third act he cries out: 


O Regan, Goneril! 
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all— 
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; 
No more of that. | 


Brabantio says to Othello: 


Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see. 
She has deceived her father and may thee. 


230 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


In these few words an event is foreshadowed which does not 
come to pass; but, as Desdemona’s father is speaking, a real 
fear is aroused in Othello and in the mind of the spectator. The 
remark is tragically just, in spite of Desdemona’s innocence; and 
it implants the first grain of suspicion in Othello’s heart. The 
lines spoken by Jago throughout the play constantly inform us 
of his diabolical plans. It seems impossible that he will be suc- 
cessful. His purpose is too vile. Desdemona is too pure. Yet 
each machination of his brain arouses suspense for the future, 
foreshadows the tragedy and prepares logically for each situation. 

in Julius Cesar, the prophetic words of the soothsayer and a 
foreshadowing dream are taken from the source. In Macbeth,. 
the prophecies of the weird sisters, also suggested by the source, 
serve as unobtrusive but effective guideposts for the spectator. 
Shakespeare was eminently successful in concealing these techni- 
cal devices by introducing them into scenes of great interest. 
Yet that he was conscious of the art seems plain from his fore- 
ghadowing and preparation in Cymbeline. In the fourth act 
Imogen must mistake the body of Cloten for that of her hus- 
band, Posthumus, through recognizing her husband’s clothes. 
As far back as the second act, Imogen taunts Cloten by saying: 


His meanest garment 
That ever hath but clipped his body, is dearer 
In my respect than all the hairs above thee, 
Were they all made such men. 


The insult strikes home. The words: “His meanest garment” 
burn into his stupid brain and Cloten forms the plan of dress- 
ing in the garments of Posthumus and slaying him. Before the 
revenge is accomplished, Cloten is slain, his head is cut off; and 
he is found by Imogen who believes him to be her husband. 
Such careful preparation is the result of conscious artistry. 
This skill in exposition, preparation and foreshadowing is 
found to be still more striking when the closing scenes of his 
finest plays are considered in relation to the first act. His 


SHAKESPEARE 231 


dénouements are the inexorable, logical results of his first situa- 
tion. His tragedies end unhappily, not because he had decided 
to write a tragedy, but because he found the germs of mis- 
fortune in the situation. Undisturbed by conceptions of so- 
called poetic justice, unafraid of producing an “excess of tragic 
pain,’ he felt that even relatively slight mistakes in judgment, 
such as Lear made, spelled disaster even for the innocent who 
came within reach of their influence. Thus he changed the 
happy outcome of the original play to a catastrophe and trans- 
formed the silly old Lear of the first version into the tragic symbol 
of a rash, doting parent whose better judgment has been dulled 
by age. In Macbeth he punishes the guilty pair. They pay the 
mental as well as the physical penalty for their crimes; but 
Romeo, Juliet, Hamlet, Desdemona, even Othello, meet fates 
which are out of proportion to their mistakes and their flaws of 
character when the standards of poetic justice are invoked. Yet 
only crass sentimentalists could dream that the outcome of 
the situations in which these people are found could be dif- 
ferent. Shakespeare idealized but never sentimentalized life. 

The dénouements of his comedies are no less logical in their 
way. When he employs a recognition scene or the discovery of 
a long-lost child, he does not introduce the event without due 
preparation after the manner of classical comedy. In The Win- 
ter’s Tale he shows how Perdita was lost. In The Comedy of 
Errors he introduces A®Zgeon searching for his boy. The Mer- 
chant of Venice ends with the trial scene, for those critics who 
erroneously believe that Shakespeare’s main purpose in writing 
the play was to depict the character of Shylock. But Shakespeare 
carefully prepares for the last act of the plot by letting us see 
the exchange of rings. 

Logical though these dénouements are, they are never com- 
monplace and are often unexpected in the means by which they 
are accomplished. Shakespeare often introduced a thrilling 
coup de thédtre which, although foreshadowed and prepared for, 
produces a surprising peripeteia at a moment of climax. Also, 
in working up to these moments of climax he has accented either 


232 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the element of hope or fear in arousing suspense in correct rela- 
tion to the coming peripeteia. If the change from grief to joy 
is to take place, he has seemingly cut off all avenues of escape 
for his hero. Thus in the trial scene in The Merchant of Venice, 
judgment has been passed against Antonio. He has bared his 
breast for the knife. The letter of the law must be observed. 
His death is imminent, when suddenly Portia solemnly warns 
the Jew: 


Shed thou no blood nor cut thou less nor more 

But just a pound of flesh . . . nay, if the scale do turn 
But in the estimation of a hair, 
Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate. 


The preceding dialogue has logically prepared for this literal 
interpretation which brings the astonishing change of fortune. 

In The Comedy of Errors the executioner stands ready for 
ZEgeon when he is suddenly recognized by the Abbess. In The 
Winter’s Tale, Leontes believes that Hermione is dead. He is 
shown her statue, marvellously like her. At last, the statue 
seems to come to life. It is the living Hermione. Thus the 
recognition scene, which in classical comedy had been merely a 
quick means to put an end to the plot when humorous scenes 
were exhausted, was transformed by Shakespeare into a dramatic 
scene of suspense and climax. In reaching the climax of his 
tragedies, Shakespeare correctly sheds a ray of hope over the 
situation. There seems to be some means of escape for his 
hero. In Romeo and Juliet the plan to have Juliet take the 
sleeping potion is fraught with danger. Yet all possible precau- 
tions have been taken. Even when the messenger fails to find 
Romeo, we know that the young lover is hastening to the tomb; 
we know that Juliet will awake; we hope she will awake before 
Romeo has drunk the poison. Time is working for happiness. 
The Friar, who knows all, is not far away; and, at least, Juliet 
has escaped the marriage with Paris. Then in one of the most 
dramatic and pathetic scenes in all drama, the balance of time 


SHAKESPEARE 233 


swings against the lovers. It is neither chance nor destiny. 
The situation and the plan were unalterably tragic. 

The balance between surprise and suspense in the ending of 
Macbeth is deftly kept. In this play our admiration for the 
hero is not strong enough to make us desire his success. We 
fear that he may not be punished and it seems likely that he 
may escape. For how is Birnam wood to come to Dunsinane; 
and what has one to fear if he cannot be slain by a man born 
of woman? But Birnam wood comes; and “Macduff was from 
his mother’s womb untimely ripped.” 

When the fortunes of Lear seem to be at their lowest ebb, as 
the storm rages and his mind has given away, a vague, dim ray 
of hope gleams out of the darkness. Gloster confides to Edmund 
that “the injuries the king now bears will be revenged home; 
there is part of a power already footed.” In the last scene of 
the fourth act, Lear has found a haven of refuge in the French 
camp with Cordelia. In a touching scene he begins to regain 
his reason under the gentle ministrations of his daughter. But 
hope is blasted by the defeat of the French. Lear and Cordelia 
are captured, and veiled orders of Edmund foreshadow their 
execution ; but, with the downfall of Edmund and his confession, 
gleams one more hope that it will not be too late to revoke the 
order to murder Cordelia. Then once more, with dramatic swift- 
ness, hope is changed to grief—this time irrevocably—as Lear 
bears in the dead Cordelia and dies of broken heart and tor- 
tured soul. All this happens while the fortunes of Edmund, 
Edgar, Goneril and Regan rise and fall with thrilling coups de 
théatre. ‘The original play ended happily, and Shakespeare has 
been accused of allowing chance—once more in the guise of time 
—to bring about an ending which produces an excess of tragic 
pain; but to change the dénouement would be to deny that in 
life mistakes of good men and machinations of evil brains result 
in tragedy for innocent human beings. Shakespeare, in King 
Lear, was true to life and to art, for in his own words: “Some 
innocents scape not the thunderbolt.” 

The dénouement of Hamlet is no less dramatic in its sudden 


234 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


events. We know that Laertes’ foil is poisoned. We know that 
the cup contains poison. Hamlet is doomed. But that the foils 
should be changed when the young prince has received a mortal 
wound ; that the queen should drink the wine; that Laertes should 
be wounded a moment later by the envenomed sword and should 
cry: “The king, the king’s to blame”; that Hamlet should turn 
upon the king; these turns of the wheel of fortune create in- 
tense excitement. , | 

Still more surprising, yet logical, is the coup de thédtre in 
Othello. Desdemona lies dead. Othello is a prisoner. He has 
learned the truth and is about to be led away, crushed into 
inactivity. He begins to speak quietly: “Soft you; a word or 
two before you go.” He explains in calm words how he was 
deceived, was wrought upon, perplexed in the extreme. He 
quietly begs them to say of him: 


that in Aleppo once, 
Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk 
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, 
I took by the throat the circumcised dog, 
And smote him, thus. 


He plunges the knife into his own heart. 

From one point of view, chance and coincidence may be work- 
ing to bring forth these dénouements; but these events advance 
the action logically, not irrationally. The plots are based upon 
hidden designs. The characters are playing desperate games, 
In the last analysis, a happy ending would be due to chance 
when the odds are laid so heavily against success. These dénoue- 
ments may be painfully tragic, but they are painfully true. 

Shakespeare’s point of departure was plot, and his predilection 
for complicated plots, full of suspense and surprising coups de 
thédtre, are strong factors in his scheme of playwriting. Broadly 
speaking, most of his plays observe a unity of action. The many 
threads of the story are finally gathered together and are un- 
knotted generally in one dénouement. At the same time, the 


SHAKESPEARE 235 


mechanical conditions of the Elizabethan stage and the form 
of dramatic art which he inherited, made the separate scenes of 
his plays units in themselves. In Greek drama and in the mod- 
ern well made play of the nineteenth century, the play itself is 
the unit. In French romantic drama each act is likely to be a 
unit; but in Shakespearean plays the smaller unity of the single 
scene has a strong influence on his technique. This method of 
playwriting leads to various results both fortunate and unfor- 
tunate. It is well suited for representing a complicated story 
dramatically. Shakespeare’s usual practice is to select scenes 
which show the incidents of the story. The oratorical rdle of 
the messenger did not appeal to him. Yet he did not always rep- 
resent deaths. Regan and Goneril, Lady Macbeth die off-stage. 
The murder of Duncan is handled in the effective manner of 
Greek tragedy, in which the deed of violence is performed almost 
if not quite within hearing. The scene in which Hamlet in dis- 
ordered dress visits Ophelia is not represented, perhaps because 
it might have appeared comic. But it is not clear why Shake- 
speare did not show us Cordelia reading the letter about her 
father. However, important events off-stage are rare in Shake- 
spearean drama. He does not hesitate to show murder and tor- 
ture. The blinding of Gloster on the stage is dangerously close 
to the horrible; but a playwright under Senecan influence would 
have made the description disgusting. In Titus Andronicus, 
he equals in bloodiness and horror any thriller of the Grand 
Guignol. | 

Like the medieval theatre, Shakespeare’s stage presents scenes 
representing almost every phase of human life; but, instead of 
being mere transcripts of reality, his scenes almost always serve 
a dramatic purpose. The various incidents are unfolded with 
kaleidoscopic variety and rapidity. Like the cinema, his dramas 
often divide a scene in order to present a piece of information 
or an impression which would be held back in other forms of 
dramatic art. This method meets with success in the opening 
of Macbeth, where normally the two scenes of the witches would 
be coalesced into one. In the third act of King Lear, however, 


236 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


he breaks into the representation of Lear’s madness and the 
storm by inserting two scenes which foreshadow the coming of 
the French King. This procedure diminishes the cumulative 
effect of the scene on the heath. Also, in Romeo and Juliet, the 
rapid changes from the cell of Friar Lawrence to other localities 
partially destroys the continuity to which modern audiences are — 
accustomed. 

Only too often the brevity of separate scenes is disturbing. 
One scarcely has time to get into the mood and situation and 
to grasp fully the inner significance of the action before some- 
thing new is presented. Sustained power is generally shown 
in the opening and closing acts of his plays. Such scenes as the 
one between Hamlet and his mother, the balcony scene in Romeo 
and Juliet, the trial scene in The Merchant of Venice, and many 
scenes in Othello bear witness to Shakespeare’s ability to build 
up climactic effects. But unfortunately, the scenes are often 
sketchy. In King Lear the intrigue of Edmund with Regan and 
Goneril is so briefly presented that it scarcely makes a dramatic 
impression, and it keeps Lear and Cordelia off the stage. If 
interest lags in certain fourth. acts of Shakespeare’s plays, it is 
partially due to the short scenes introduced at this point to 
tell portions of the complicated plot and to prepare the action 
for the great catastrophe. Thus in Macbeth, the murder of 
Macduff’s son is suddenly and briefly staged. The introduction 
of such incidents aids in telling the story; but not until Macbeth 
and Lady Macbeth are on the stage again, do we feel that the 
dramatic action is really unfolding. 

These scenes are more narrative than dramatic, and once a 
principal has been moulded into an intensely interesting char- 
acter, his absence is regrettable. The plot of a play should be 
unfolded by showing the effect of events on the important char- 
acters rather than by representing the actions of secondary per- 
-sonages. Had the Elizabethan stage been less flexible, Shake- 
speare would have had to be more rigorous in his selection of 
scenes. He could not have included in his plays so many inci- 
dents which only help to tell the story; and, very likely, he 


SHAKESPEARE 237 


would have kept his important personages before us more than 
he does. Marlowe had made depiction of character the basis 
of selection of scenes. He had shown the events in the life of 
his hero. Shakespeare was more concerned with representing a 
plot in which many people were involved. 

Yet Shakespeare, in spite of this difference in method, was 
able to differentiate his people and make of them individuals 
instead of types. There is no evidence that Shakespeare ever 
took a character as a point of departure and then constructed 
a plot to reveal that character in action. He never sacrifices 
plot to the study of character; but he often sets aside his chief 
personages in order to represent incidents of secondary impor- 
tance which a modern dramatist, primarily interested in rep- 
resenting a character, would narrate in some manner. Othello 
and Iago hold the centre of the stage constantly; but Macbeth, 
Hamlet, Romeo, Lear, Cordelia, Antony, Cleopatra, suffer a 
temporary eclipse at moments when a Moliére or even a Marlowe 
would keep them before us. Julius Cesar and Shylock disappear 
before the plays are ended because of the exigencies of the com- 
plicated plots; but had Shakespeare taken these characters as 
points of departure he would have brought these plays to a con- 
clusion when their rdles are ended. The Merchant of Venice 
has been produced in this manner, and the effect of the play 
is very different from what Shakespeare actually intended. It 
becomes practically a tragic study of character and ought to 
be called Shylock. Likewise, Julius Cesar, if closed after An- 
tony’s oration, would better fit its title, but would be a play 
with a much simpler plot. 

No other dramatist has ever produced such a great variety 
of people so skilfully drawn. Shakespeare’s characters, even 
those of lesser importance, have a clearly defined individuality. 
His ability to produce a striking portrait by a few telling strokes 
is shown by the fact that Cordelia speaks less than a hundred 
lines. Yet having created this true, faithful child and having 
fixed our interest on her, he allows her to appear in only four 
out of twenty-six scenes. 


238 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The fact that boys played the rdles of women on the Eliza- 
bethan stage has been alleged as the reason why there were 
relatively fewer women than men in Shakespeare’s plays. The 
disguises of girls as boys, such as Viola, have been ascribed to 
the same reason. But if the narrative sources of his plays are 
examined, it is found that he used the women he found in them; 
and, if they were disguised, he employed the situation as it ex- 
isted. Also, the reason that so many of his heroines are mother- 
less lies in the fact that they are motherless in the narrative 
or play that he dramatized or rewrote. Shakespeare created 
characters by endowing them with life; but he invented rela- 
tively few rdles and very few plots. 

Shakespeare’s skill in portraiture and his outstanding ability 
to develop the action out of the psychological reactions of the 
characters to events, have led many critics to analyze his plays 
as if character were of primary importance. This practice is — 
-unjust to the playwright. The construction of Antony and Cleo- 
patra is a striking example of his method carried to such an 
extreme that the result is unfortunate. Here he had two char- 
acters around whom history and legend have woven a dramatic 
romance, in which a great leader loses all by succumbing to the 
sensuous charms of a woman. The glamour of centuries sur- 
rounds the theme; but Shakespeare followed the narrative source 
in Plutarch too closely. He introduced scene upon scene of 
troublesome brevity, dealing with changes in political fortunes 
and battles. The impression made by the hero and heroine is 
often dulled, at moments when it should be clearest, by these 
breaks in the continuity of the psychological struggle. It is 
fairly easy to pick up the many threads of a plot presented in 
this episodic manner; but it is difficult to make the necessary 
synthesis of character which has been interrupted by plot scenes, 
and even by scenes which have so slight a bearing on the plot that 
they are dropped in modern productions. 

The spectator of a Shakespearean drama receives many dif- 
ferent impressions and emotions in a short space of time. The 
element of contrast is introduced as the scenes follow in quick 


SHAKESPEARE 239 


succession. It is difficult, however, to prove that Shakespeare 
consciously employed this method for the sake of contrast. He 
inherited the system, and he could not avoid contrast, once he 
had accepted it: He also inherited the medieval custom of in- 
troducing scenes of comedy into serious plays “in order to enliven 
the play,” as the old playwrights said. When later English 
critics came under the influence of classical theory which de- 
mands continuity of scenes and forbids humor in tragedy, they 
attempted to justify the practice of their idol by asserting that 
he broke the continuity for the sake of introducing contrast and 
introduced humor to furnish comic relief from the otherwise ex- 
cessive tragic pain. Historically these theories are false. Nor 
can the theory of comic relief be justified on artistic grounds. 
No truly great work of dramatic art is so tragic that unless our 
risibilities are tickled, we cannot bear it. No Greek or French 
audience ever longed for a scene of comedy in Gdipus Rex or 
Phédre. English speaking people are certainly not more sensi- 
tive than those highly emotional races; nor is Greek drama less 
tragic than Elizabethan. These so-called scenes of comic relief 
such as the Porter’s scene in Macbeth, and the scene in which 
Ophelia in her madness sings indecent songs, the Grave-diggers’ 
scene in Hamlet, do introduce a contrast; but the contrast is so 
grim that, instead of relieving the emotion, it intensifies the 
tragedy. These scenes are played in the modern theatre in a 
grotesque tone; and to Shakespeare, more than to anyone else, 
belongs the credit of introducing the grotesque in order to 
heighten the beautiful and deepen the tragic. Victor Hugo, 
who proclaimed this theory, rightly gave full credit to Shake- 
speare for suggesting it in practice. 

The influence of Shakespeare on the development of dramatic 
art has been variously felt. In the eighteenth and early nine- 
teenth centuries his dramas were imitated on the Continent; and 
they helped to break down the rigorous respect for classical 
form. In England and later in America, critics came to look 
upon his plays as the pillars of Hercules beyond which we have 
been swept by the relentless tide of time. Too often we fix 


240 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


our gaze upon them; and, oblivious to other landmarks, we have 
tried to struggle back to them—always in vain. We have kept 
our eyes upon the past, teaching the children of every generation 
that there is nothing in dramatic art beyond Shakespeare; that 
the newer forms of drama are theatrical. The backwardness 
of English drama until recent years was due, to a great extent, 
to the blind worship of a great genius who wrote for a medieval 
stage. 


CHAPTER VIII 
SENECA 


levee neacy as it might be to trace the early history of 
Roman tragedy when Livius Andronicus, Ennius and Pacu- 
vius and others were adapting Greek tragedy for the Roman 
stage, the lack of sufficient data and the fact that none of these 
plays are entirely preserved make the task difficult. Nor is 
the reconstruction necessary for our purpose. The Roman taste 
for spectacle seems to have modified the Greek technique, for 
a time came when in the presentation of an Orestes, Helen’s en- 
trance was shown with great magnificence. In the Euripidean 
version this was supposed to have taken place at night in order 
to avoid the insults of the people, but the later adaptation had 
the entrance by day. But the tragedy which was destined to 
exert the paramount influence in the Renaissance is tragedy 
which may not have been composed for representation, but for 
reading, or at most recitation. At least, Senecan drama is con- 
structed as if it were to be read. On the stage it would lose in 
effectiveness. 

In the tragedies of Euripides there were the germs of de- 
cadence of dramatic art. The outbursts of pure oratory, the 
debates on subjects only remotely suggested by the situation, 
the maxims and sententious sayings foreshadow a form of drama 
in which the action is subordinate to the lines and merely forms 
a background for the author’s political, philosophical, mytho- 
logical, religious, and geographical ideas and information. Also 
there is generally a trend in all tragedy toward the horrible or 
disgusting; and even a great genius must constantly be on guard 
against pushing his tragic element so far that it becomes a 
bloody episode in the life of mere criminals. Thus, Euripides 

241 


242 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


in the Bacchantes describes the murder of Pentheus in terms 
which are more hair-raising than tragic: 


One awful blended cry 
Rose—the king’s screams while life was yet in him, 
And triumph—yells from them. One bore an arm, 
One a foot sandal-shod. His ribs were stripped 
In mangled shreds; with blood-bedrabbled hands 
Each to and fro was tossing Pentheus’ flesh. 


The oratorical and the horrible became the aim of serious 
drama in the hands of Seneca. From one point of view it is 
unjust to apply the usual standards of criticism to Senecan 
tragedy, because Seneca’s aim was to produce a poem in dia- 
logue form in which he could describe, with an amazing flood 
ot words and brilliancy of diction, scenes and deeds which he 
thought were tragic, but which, at most, give one a creepy thrill. 
Everything is sacrificed to this aim. But Senecan tragedy was 
the most artistic form of drama in the opinion of the men of 
the Renaissance, and contemporary ideals of dramatic technique 
were based upon these tragedies. Whether Senecan drama was 
written to be played or not, it finally became the supreme in- 
fluence for many years in plays written for the stage. There- 
fore, absurd as it may seem to do so, the usual standards of 
dramatic criticism must be applied to this form of tragedy. 

The Senecan formula of dramatic art was simple. He took 
a Greek tragedy and discarded everything which did not lend 
itself to description, oratory, debate and horror. His inventive 
power and his selection of incidents to be discarded, to be rep- 
resented or described were conditioned by these considerations. 

As a general rule the point of attack and the dénouement are 
at the same place in Senecan tragedy that they are in his Greek 
source, If a change was made, it was in order to introduce a 
descriptive passage. Thus Hercules Giieus opens with Her- 
cules still in Eubcoea, whereas Sophocles’ Women of Trachis 
begins just before his return home. The Senecan play is ex- 


SENECA 243 


tended beyond the Euripidean version and closes with a descrip- 
tion of the burning of the body of Hercules, the return of 
Alcmena with his ashes, and the vision of the hero in heaven. 
By this means, Seneca was able to introduce in the first act a 
long description by Hercules of his labors, and a description 
of the scene at the funeral pyre, and the oratorical lamentation 
of Alcmena in the last act. The play was enlarged in order 
to introduce undramatic material. 

The opening scene is generally a monologue which is followed 
by a dialogue. So much knowledge of the myth is presupposed, 
that the situation remains obscure unless one is acquainted with 
it beforehand. In the scenes of exposition, as well as through- 
out the play, the story is so hidden in an avalanche of words 
that it is difficult to follow. There is none of the pictorial 
element in the opening scenes that is found in so many Greek 
tragedies. In Sophocles’ Gidipus Rex, the eye would be at- 
tracted by the people kneeling in supplication before the mon- 
arch. We behold the stricken people; but Seneca is more con- 
cerned with describing in minute detail how the people are 
stricken. He prefers to depict in words the horror of the pes- 
tilence and the abject terror of the smitten populace, than to 
foreshadow the action and to arouse suspense. In his Medea, he 
has the heroine pour forth her emotions in a monologue instead 
of allowing the audience to hear the cries of the distressed 
woman. He does not show us the children and arouse suspense 
by foreshadowing their death as does Euripides. He lets his 
principal characters wail, and complain, and threaten dire ven- 
geance; but he never arouses sympathy for them in the opening 
scenes. . 

Revenge is not a lofty motive and it is the chief motive of 
the typical Senecan play. In order to emphasize this idea of 
vengeance at the outset, certain plays, such as Thyestes and 
Agamemnon, open with a ghost or a fury who recounts the crime 
which is to be avenged. This procedure recalls the ghost of 
Polydorus in Hecuba and the furies at the beginning of the 
Eumenides. In Seneca’s Agamemnon, the ghost of Thyestes tells 


244 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the wrongs he suffered at the hands of Agamemnon’s father, 
Atreus, and announces that the moment for revenge has come. 
To compare this bombastic spectre with the dramatic appear- 
ance of the Watchman in the Aischylean Agamemnon only makes 
one marvel at the bad taste of the Renaissance in drama. This 
motive of revenge, which puts the whole drama on a low plane, 
and substitutes a kind of grisly horror for the pulsating sus- 
pense and tragedy of fate portrayed by Aischylus, was to be- 
come the mainspring of Renaissance drama. And the ghost or 
fury vowing vengeance was a common device for exposition 
when Roman brutality was echoed in Italy, France and England. 
The sole consolation in the face of this lowered tone of a great 
art is that under the purifying genius of a Shakespeare a Hamlet 
will be refined from this base metal. 

The action in Senecan drama limps along in a jerky fashion 
whenever it emerges, from time to time, in the press of descrip- 
tion and oratory. There is scarcely any of the artistic swing- — 
ing backward and forward of the pendulum of suspense from 
hope to fear which is found in Greek tragedy. What is left 
of this artistic device in Seneca’s Gidipus Rex, for instance, has 
survived as if by chance. Instead of the scene wrought with 
consummate skill by Sophocles in which Tiresias, forced to 
speak by Qédipus, says: “Thou art the man,” Seneca deliber- 
ately suppresses entirely the idea that Tiresias knows the identity 
of the murderer of Laius. Why? In order to turn the stage into 
a slaughter-house by having animals sacrificed so that Tiresias 
may divine from their bloody entrails the identity of the guilty 
man, Normally such a scene would take place off the stage, so 
that it could be described; but since Tiresias is blind, Seneca 
is able to have his daughter describe the sacrifice performed on 
the stage, and thus he attains one of his aims: to depict nau- 
seating details which are only artistic to a person afflicted with 
blood-madness. That is the sole reason for introducing this 
scene which reaches only an anti-climax, for Tiresias cannot 
find out anything from the “vitals plucked from living breasts.” 
He must summon the ghost of the murdered Laius. 


SENECA 245 


This event leads to that other favorite device of Seneca: the 
appearance of a ghost; but he does not represent this scene on 
the stage, because he cannot forego the joy of describing it. 
So he has Creon, who has been present at the rites of necro- 
mancy, report the result to Gidipus. Now Creon, who knows 
that the ghost has accused CEdipus, is entirely able to hold back 
this astounding fact, until he has described minutely where and 
how the spectre appeared, and his own emotions during the 
scene. After a long harangue, he finally comes to the point. 
By this laborious method Seneca reaches an incident about 
the middle of his play, which comes fairly early in the Sophoclean 
version. 

The original play furnished two other events which appealed 
to Seneca: the self-inflicted blindness of Gidipus and the suicide 
of Jocasta. The former is horrible enough in Seneca’s opinion 
to merit the most careful handling. So he describes how 
(Edipus, with hooked fingers, rent his eyeballs from their deepest 
roots and then explored the wound. The death of Jocasta, how- 
ever, is by comparison, tame, being a mere suicide. So Seneca 
allows it to be enacted on the stage. 

Seneca, however, invents a scene between the bloody-eyed 
(Edipus and Jocasta just before her death; and by so doing, he 
again reaches a climax of horror. Hardly any situation can be 
truly tragic in the highest sense of the word, unless it is treated 
with delicacy. With the delicate feeling that belongs to the 
great artist, Sophocles never shows us the mother and son to- 
gether after both are conscious of their crime. ‘The instant 
that Jocasta knows the truth, she disappears. Only a morbid 
spectator would wish to see her. The tragedy does not de- 
generate into the indecent horror portrayed in Seneca’s fifth act. 

In Medea, Seneca substitutes for the dramatic scenes of the 
Euripidean play a fourth act consisting of a long description 
of Medea’s incantations and of a representation on the stage 
of her necromancy as she prepares the fatal, poisoned robe. 
Euripides has her kill her children behind the scenes; but this 


246 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


double murder is a too delectable climax of horror for Seneca 
to miss. He has Medea slay one child on the stage; and in 
order to squeeze the last drop of horror out of this scene, worthy 
of the Grand-Guignol, Seneca brings Jason to witness the mur- 
der of the last child, dispatched on the housetops whither Medea 
has gone to mount her winged chariot. 

The dramatic system of this playwright consists in describing 
scenes that are especially bloody, or which offer possibilities 
of depicting details which would be lost in being enacted. If 
a murder can be made more shocking by being witnessed by 
other characters, it is portrayed in plain sight contrary to the 
Greek practice. Thus in Thyestes, the scene in which Atreus 
kills and cuts up the children of Thyestes is messengered; but 
the scene in which Thyestes dines from their limbs, is repre- 
sented. In each case the maximum of horror and nausea is pro- 
duced. Greek playwrights portrayed the emotions aroused by 
a, deed and the results of these emotions. Seneca portrays a 
horrible deed. The Greeks produced tragedy. Seneca produced 
“thrillers.” 

A description, however, does not have to be disgusting in > 
order to appeal to Seneca as material for drama. He inter- 
rupts the action of Hercules Furens at one of the most exciting 
moments to allow Theseus, who has little connection with the 
plot, to describe the geography of Hades. 

Although Seneca introduces these descriptions, he does keep 
his principal characters on the stage most of the time; but they 
talk at each other, rather than to each other. They accuse 
and bewail and plead; but always in such an oratorical way, 
that they seem to be aloof from each other, like debaters who 
speak one after the other on different sides of a subject. The 
poet too often makes them his mouthpiece and deprives them 
of individuality. It is impossible to be in sympathy with any 
one of them. Pale pity is all we feel; and generally we are 
left with an uncomfortable shudder. The impulsive, active, 
forceful (dipus of Sophocles becomes under Seneca’s hand a 
weary figure, who prays he may not survive his unhappy sub- 


SENECA 247 


jects. Senecan characters do not develop. Medea, at most, 
merely wavers in her feelings. 

Another manner of delaying the action and of substituting 
narrative and description for dramatic scenes, lies in his ex- 
tensive use of the chorus, which is often entirely unconnected 
with the plot. The chorus is only a confidant; and generally its 
function is to appear between the acts and comment on different 
questions suggested by the situation. In Hercules Furens, how- 
ever, the first chorus consists of the band of captured maidens, 
of whom Iole is one; but this chorus is supplanted by a chorus 
of Atolian women. Euripides has an excellent scene in which 
Iole and the captured maidens arrive; and Deianira, struck 
by the beauty of Iole, feels drawn to her and questions her; 
but Iole remains silent. This is a scene of great suspense and 
of capital importance, for a few moments later Deianira finds 
out that Iole is her husband’s mistress. Although Seneca intro- 
duces Jole in the first act, with characteristic and consistent 
bungling, he suppresses the scene which contains the initial cause 
of the action. In his play the discovery that Iole is the mistress 
of Hercules occurs between the acts and is reported by the 
nurse. Once more the working of his system is plain. He has 
opened the play with Hercules still in Eubcea, in order to give 
Hercules an opportunity to describe his labors. His first act 
must end with a chorus and he introduces the captive maidens, 
who areeconveniently present in Euboea. After they have ful- 
filled this function they are promptly discarded, although Iole 
is an important character. In every phase of Senecan tech- 
nique—exposition, point of attack, foreshadowing, obligatory 
scenes, climax, dénouement, characterization—the dramatic ele- 
‘ment is subservient to description, oratory, debate, horror, and 
the motive of revenge. 

The culmination of this system is exemplified by his Thyestes, 
which unfortunately with the pseudo-Senecan Octavia, became 
the model of tragic drama for the Renaissance. In the first act 
of Thyestes, a* fury goads the ghost of Tantalus to plunge his 
house into dire disorders and to awaken in Atreus and Thyestes 


248 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


an evil lust for blood. Act IJ. Atreus, in dialogue with an at- 
tendant, plans to recall Thyestes, who seduced the wife of Atreus 
and who tried to gain the throne. Pretending reconciliation he 
will offer Thyestes a place on the throne. Act III. A seem- 
ingly friendly meeting takes place between the two brothers, at 
the end of which Atreus places the crown on Thyestes’ head. 
Act IV. A messenger describes to the chorus how Atreus killed 
and cut up the sons of Thyestes. Act V. Thyestes is shown 
at a banquet. Atreus gives him the blood of the children to 
drink and their limbs to eat. Thyestes recognizes the severed 
heads of his children. He vows vengeance. Comment is un- 
necessary. 

In the pseudo-Senecan Octavia, the first act is an elegy by 
Octavia and her nurse on the subject of her grievous position. 
She despises Nero, her husband, and he loves a woman who 
turns out later to be Poppza. Act II. Seneca, a character in 
the play, tries in vain to persuade Nero not to divorce Octavia 
for Poppa. This scene, in which a confidant pleads with a 
tyrant for justice and clemency was to be often reproduced in 
neo-classical tragedy. Act III. The ghost of Agrippina rises, 
and curses Nero, and prophesies his death. Octavia tries to 
soothe the grief of the chorus at her divorce. Act IV. Poppza 
tells her nurse how she was terrified by a dream, in which 
Agrippina’s ghost and the spectre of her former husband ap- 
peared to her. A messenger announces to the chorus that the 
Roman people, aroused by love for Octavia, are threatening to 
burn the palace. Act V. Nero threatens vengeance on the 
people and orders a prefect to carry out his orders to exile 
Octavia and kill her. He leaves the stage. Octavia is dragged 
in by guards. The chorus laments and she is taken to exile. 

This play, perhaps written by Maternus, is the sole surviving 
example of Roman historical drama. If it is a fair sample of 
its kind, one only regrets that it was preserved as a model for 
the Renaissance. It offends almost every canon of dramatic 
art. The protagonists and antagonists never meet on the stage, 
although, in order to avoid each other, they have to use opposite 


A i i Nae ae 


SENECA 249 


exits and entrances. There is no obligatory scene. The play 
is a succession of elegiac scenes, ghost scenes, vengeance scenes, 
and messengering. It was the prototype of many a play in the 
Renaissance. As Roman tragedy of this period accepted and 
emphasized the undramatic elements in Greek tragedy, so Renais- 
sance tragedy exalts the undramatic elements in Roman tragedy. 
Dramatic action, which little by little came upon the stage, is 
finally drowned in a flood of words. It is a depressing spectacle 
of degeneration. 


CHAPTER IX 
ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 


NOWLEDGE of classical tragedy came in the early Renais- 
sance through the ten so-called Senecan tragedies, of which 
Hercules Géiteus probably and Octavia certainly were not written 
by Seneca, but were later imitations of his dramaturgy. JHer- 
cules Giteus and Octavia are even less fitted for representation 
on a stage than the indubitably genuine Senecan plays. Octavia, 
which has been dated, though not convincingly, as late as the 
fourth century, is the least dramatic of them all, but exerted 
a strong influence on tragedy of the later Renaissance. 

Interest in Seneca was revived by Nicolas Treveth who wrote 
a commentary on his works in the late thirteenth or early four- 
teenth century. Treveth was an Englishman who studied at 
Oxford and Paris. His work was well known throughout Eu- 
rope, and especially in Italy, where the revival of classical 
scholarship was carried on diligently. Medieval drama had at- 
tained popularity in France by the beginning of the fourteenth 
century; but native Italian drama was relatively unimportant, 
and the mystery play became really popular in Italy only after 
the revival of the Senecan form of drama. The development 
of humanistic drama began in Italy in the fourteenth century, 
while the stage in France and England was wholly occupied by 
the medieval plays. 

After Treveth’s commentary on Seneca was published, a cir- 
cle of scholars in Padua began the study of Senecan verse, and 
Albertino Mussato was inspired to imitate his tragedies. He 
seems to have assumed, perhaps correctly, that Senecan tragedy 
was intended to be read, not acted. His first play, Ecerinus 
(1315), is an historical tragedy in Latin and in Senecan style. 

In the first act, Adelheita tells her children, Ecerinus and 

250 


- ee a —— = 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 251 


Albricus, that their father is Satan. Ecerinus invokes the aid of 
Satan; and a chorus deplore the evil days into which they have 
fallen because of the overweening ambition of those in power. 
Act II. A messenger recounts to the chorus the misfortunes of 
the country and the rise in power of the cruel Ecerinus. The 
chorus ask Christ whether he is so entirely given up to the de- 
lights of Olympus that he has forgotten the faithful. Act III. 
The two brothers talk of their deeds and projects. They en- 
courage each other to act as worthy sons of Satan. Lucas, a 
monk, tries in vain to win them over to better sentiments. A 
messenger, who announces that Padua has been captured by the 
Pope, is sentenced to be punished by having his foot cut off. A 
second messenger brings the same news and is tortured. 
Ecerinus orders his followers to prepare to lay siege to Padua. 
The chorus recount how he caused thousands of prisoners to 
be slain. Act IV. Ecerinus decides to abandon the siege and , 
make war in the East. He prophesies victory; but a messenger 
describes the whole war and his death. Act V. A messenger 
recounts the capture of Albricus, how his children were mur- 
dered before his eyes, his death, and how his limbs were thrown 
to dogs. 

The narration by messengers, the horror, the sententious, 
declamatory style, the scene in which the good counsellor pleads 
in vain, the choral role, the cruel villains instead of sympathetic 
heroes as principal characters in the story, the action behind 
the scenes, are due to Senecan influence. The point of attack, 
forty-six years before the close of the play, is medieval; but the 
play has none of the epic proportions of the medieval drama. 

Loschi’s Achilleis (ca. 1387) is constructed on broader lines. 
In the first three acts, at least one important character carries 
on the action. The scene changes from Troy to the camp 
of the Greeks, as the rule of the unity of place had not yet been 
formulated. The fourth act, however, consists of a recital, by 
a messenger to a chorus of Greeks, of the death of Achilles. The 
fifth act shows Agamemnon in his tent lamenting the death of 
the hero and calling for vengeance. Calchas says that, under 


252 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


. the leadership of Achilles, Troy can be captured. After a fairly 
good beginning, Loschi reached only a climax of undramatic 
narration and elegy. Achilleis, however, is one of the first plays 
in which the Senecan vengeance motivates the action. Hecuba 
_ wishes to avenge the death of Hector by slaying Achilles. No 

Senecan ghost actually appears; but Hecuba dreams of Priam 
appearing to her dead and bloody, and begging her to avenge 
him. 

The ghost appears in Corraro’s Progne (before 1429), which 
is founded upon Ovid’s Metamorphoses (VI. 5). The narra- 
tive tells how Tereus was married to Progne, who after five 
years of married life begged her husband to visit her father’s 
land ana bring her sister Philumena for a visit. Tereus did 
so; but as he was returning home, he was overcome with lust 
_and violated Philumena. The horrified maiden begged for 
death, but Tereus cut out her tongue and imprisoned her. 

Judging from the construction of Titus Andronicus, which con- 
tains a somewhat similar situation, we may conjecture that 
Shakespeare would have included these events in his play, had 
he dramatized this story. But Corraro has learned his lesson 
from Seneca and his opening act takes place after all this has 
happened. In Senecan fashion, the shade of Diomedes comes 
from Hades and predicts in obscure words that new horrors 
will be committed. The point of attack is in mediis rebus, ac- 
cording to the doctrine of Horace and the practice of Seneca. 
The motive of vengeance appears when Progne discovers what 
has happened to Philumena. She takes revenge upon her hus- 
band by slaying their son and serving his limbs to Tereus, after 
the manner of Seneca’s Thyestean feast. 

In 1471 Poliziano produced his Orfeo, which is the first play 
in Italian on a subject borrowed from classical mythology. In 
its first form this favola, as it is called, follows the technique 
of the rappresentazioni, or medieval Italian drama. The “an- 
nunciation,” or medieval prologue, is pronounced by Mercury 
instead of an angel as in the plays on sacred subjects. The 
play then opens with a pastoral scene, in which the shepherd 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 253 


Aristeo tells Mopso how he has fallen in love with a charming 
nymph whom he lately beheld. Mopso bids him beware of love, 
but Aristeo sings a song to his inamorata. ‘Tirsi, returning from a 
search for one of Mopso’s herd, speaks of having seen a beau- 
tiful maiden. Aristeo, sure she must be his lady, sets out in 
search of her. He finds the nymph, Eurydice; but she flees 
from him. Orfeo sings some Latin verses in praise of the Car- 
dinal of Mantua. A shepherd informs him of the death of 
Eurydice through the sting of a serpent. Orfeo, chanting a 
lament, arrives at the gate of Hades; and, quieting the Furies 
and Cerberus with his song, he enters and begs Pluto to give 
him back his wife. Pluto, at the request of Proserpina, grants 
Orfeo’s plea on condition that he will not look at Eurydice until 
they have ascended to earth; but Orfeo is unable to keep his 
eyes from her, and she bids him farewell forever. As he tries to 
follow her, a Fury bars his way. He breaks into lamentation. 
A Bacchante, indignant at his words against love and women, 
calls upon the women to slay him. They evidently pursue him 
off the stage, for the Bacchante returns with Orfeo’s head. The 
play ends with a hymn and a sacrifice to Bacchus. 

Some years later Teobaldo divided this play into five acts, 
introduced a chorus of Dryads in the second act and a chorus 
of Menads in the last act, added a few speeches, and dropped 
the anachronistic reference to the Cardinal of Mantua. He 
thereupon called the play a tragedy. In substance and _ tech- 
nique the second version is very close to the original form, 
which Symonds correctly styles ‘pastoral melodrama with a 
tragic climax.” It had a greater influence on later pastoral 
drama and opera because of its lyric songs, than on Renaissance 
tragedy. The scene demands a medieval, simultaneous setting, 
which is incompatible with the tragic form of drama as pro- 
duced by the imitators of Seneca. 

During the latter half of the fifteenth century, mystery plays, 
comedies of Terence and Plautus, Senecan tragedies, and imita- 
tions of Senecan tragedies in Latin began to be presented in 
Rome, under the direction of Cardinal Raffaele Riario, and his 


254 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


nephew, Cardinal Pietro Riario. Vitruvius’ description of the 
ancient theatre was rediscovered ; and Raffaele Riario had a stage 
constructed with a setting consisting of a row of pillars with 
curtains hanging between them. This scenery could represent 
the public square for comedies, and the vestibule or exterior 
of a palace for tragedies. The adoption of this single scene 
instead of a medieval system of simultaneous setting would 
tend to facilitate the introduction of the rule of the unity of 
place. Also, it furnished that vague but indispensable locality 
for Senecan tragedy known as “behind the scenes,” where most 
of the action in Renaissance drama will take place. 

The influence of the simultaneous setting and the loose con- — 
struction of medieval mysteries was still strong enough when 
Verardi was composing his Historia Baetica and his Fernandus 
Servatus, to cause these plays to be a combination of medieval 
and Senecan technique. Although he observes the unity of time 
in the Historia Baetica (produced in Riario’s palace in 1492), 
the scene changes from the palace of Boabdil to the camp of 
Ferdinand. He also suppresses the chorus; but there is much 
messengering, and deliberations take the place of action. Dra- 
matic dialogue is smothered by long discourses and harangues 
drawn from Livy and Sallust. The usual dream is introduced. 
In his other play, the Senecan Furies assume the medieval role 
of a devil as they tempt the would-be assassin of Ferdinand. 
Isabella’s prayer to St. James, the appearance of the saint, and 
miraculous healing of Ferdinand’s wound are typically medieval. 

Dovizio’s Augustinus (played about 1493), is even more 
medieval with its thirty-three scenes and no division into acts, 
its changes of scene from Africa to Milan, the sermon, and the 
introduction of comic episodes. 

About the same time that these plays were written, other 
tragedies were being constructed on lines more strictly Senecan, 
in which elegy and narration almost completely overshadow any 
dramatic development of action. The first three acts of Lau- 
divio’s De Captivitate Ducis Jacobi (written before 1471) con- 
sist of deliberations and narrations. The hero enters in the 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 255 


fourth act in time to be killed, and in the fifth act the announce- 
ment of his death is made. 

Antonio Cammelli’s Filostrato e Panfila (produced at Ferrara 
in 1499) is a tragedy in the vernacular in Senecan style, al- 
though founded upon the first novel of the fourth day of the 
Decameron. ‘The prologue, which gives the plot, is spoken by 
the Ghost of Seneca. Having fulfilled two technical exigencies 
of introducing a ghost and pointing to Seneca as the sponsor for 
his artistic methods, Cammelli begins his play with a rhetorical 
scene between Demetrio, King of Thebes, and his daughter 
Panfila. She is a widow and her father has no intention of marry- 
ing her to anyone, although he vaguely foreshadows the action 
by commending a certain Filostrato, a servant but a man of 
character. Panfila, in a monologue, discloses her love for 
Filostrato; and as her father will not give her in marriage, she 
resolves to become the mistress of Filostrato. In the second act 
Filostrato learns of Panfila’s love for him and how to enter her 
room through a subterranean passage. The meeting of the lovers 
takes place between the acts, and in the third act Filostrato tells 
a courtier of his happiness. Demetrio informs us in monologue 
that he was a concealed witness of the meeting. Pandaro intro- 
duces the necessary foreshadowing dream. In the fourth act 
Pandaro pleads for clemency toward the lovers, but Demetrio 
seeks bloody revenge. Neither of the lovers repents and 
Demetrio resolves to have Filostrato put to death. The last act 
opens with a description of the execution. The executioner gives 
Filostrato’s heart to Demetrio, who has it sent to Panfila. 
She takes poison and dies on the stage. The play closes with the 
repentance on the part of the father, a scene which will become 
canonical. 

In 1502 Galeotto del Carretto wrote Sofonisba, which was not 
played until 1546, but which may have been known by Trissino, 
who composed in 1515 a tragedy in Greek style on the same sub- 
ject and with the same title. Both plays are drawn from Livy’s 
account of the defeat of Syphax and the fate of his wife Sopho- 
nisba; but they are very dissimilar in construction. The earlier 


‘ 
256 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


play contains a chorus, but is cast in the mould of medieval 
drama. Even the chorus is practically personified stage direc- 
tions and narrative, for it describes what is happening as the 
characters go from one place to another, over the seas and finally 
to symbolic lands. There are many changes of scene and a long 
lapse of time. The point of attack is clearly medieval, as the 
play opens when Massanissa joins the Romans. Many of the 
events, which are recounted in the exposition of Trissino’s ver- 
sion, are represented. The result is that Sophonisba herself, as 
so oftens happens in medieval drama, plays but a small part in 
the play bearing her name. The Greek tragic playwrights finally 
learned to keep the principal character in the story an active and 
dramatic character in the play, whereas in New Comedy, in 
Senecan tragedy and in the later mystery plays the principals 
are often overshadowed, although for different reasons, since these 
forms of drama are widely divergent. 

Until the beginning of the sixteenth century Greek tragedy 
was little known; but Sophocles’ tragedies were published in 
1502 and those of Euripides in 1503. During this century 
Aristotle was constituted the supreme judge in the theory of 
dramatic art. Constant and voluminous discussion of his prin- 
ciples of criticism stimulated interest in Greek drama. The 
Greek tragic playwrights displaced Seneca as a model for certain 
Italian tragedies. Trissino was the first Italian dramatist to 
show good taste by preferring Greek tragedy to the plays of 
Seneca, which, as he said, are mostly fragments of Greek plays 
joined together with little art. His Sofonisba (1515) is not only 
classical, but in certain respects, more Greek than Senecan. 

The play opens with a long recital by Sophonisba to her con- 
fidante, Erminia, of the history of Carthage. She tells that she 
was once affianced to Massinissa, but was given in marriage by 
her father to Syphas. The usual classical dream foreshadows 
allegorically the action which is to follow. The chorus wonders 
whether she should be told that the enemy is at the city gates. A 
servant informs her of the defeat and capture of Syphax by Mas- 
sinissa; and a messenger announces the capture of the city. The 


i a ar eh lle ee hel a ll 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 287 


real dramatic action now begins, for Massinissa and Sophonisba 
meet in a scene not without dignity and power. Sophonisba 
begs her former lover not to allow her to be taken as a captive 
to Rome and asks him to give his promise to protect her. They . 
withdraw; and after a choral passage, a messenger informs 
Lzlius that Massinissa has married the queen in order to protect 
her. Massinissa now appears and the question is whether the 
Romans will allow him to prevent his bride from being led to 
Rome as a captive. Cato comes to calm the hot dispute and it is 
agreed that Scipio shall make the decision. Syphax appears be- 
fore Cato, and accuses Sophonisba of having incited him to war. 
Scipio orders Massinissa to give up his bride. The chorus sees a 
servant carrying a cup to Sophonisba. A servant tells how 
Sophonisba has drained the cup of poison. Sophonisba appears; 
and, taking leave of her child and her sister, she dies decorously 
in a chair and is borne away in it. Massinissa enters. He has 
committed a terrible blunder, and was only waiting for darkness 
to save Sophonisba, who took the poison too soon! 

Trissino compressed many events into one day; but he did so 
without any thought of the unity of time since that theory had 
not yet been formulated. The scene really changes from the 
palace to the camp of Scipio; but the unity of place was even a 
later theory than that of the unity of time. The limits of time 
and of place introduced by Trissino are much narrower than 
those employed by Galeotto del Carretto; but they are due to 
imitation of Greek tragedy and not to observance of rules. Prac- 
tice preceded critical theory as usual. Trissino chose his point 
of attack in accordance with the custom of Greek playwrights. It 
is farther from the climax than it will be in later Italian tragedy. 
There are long speeches and characterless messengers report too 
much of the action; but Trissino found justification for narra- 
tion in Euripidean tragedy. There is no division into acts and 
the chorus is handled more after the manner of Euripides than 
of Seneca. The greatest departure from Senecan technique lies 
in the fact that there is no horror or bloody revenge with accom- 
panying Furies or ghosts. The tragedy is on a high plane; and 


258 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Sophonisba, although pale in comparison to Greek heroines, is 
more dignified and more sympathetic than Senecan women. Sym- 
pathy is a very important emotion in dramatic art, but is 
rarely aroused by Senecan heroes. Trissino did not aim to shock 
his audience, but to move them to sympathetic tears. This is 
the result of Greek influence. Protagonists of medieval drama 
were sympathetic characters. Their death aroused religious ex- 
altation because it was a triumphal apotheosis. Protagonists of 
Greek tragedy were sympathetic characters. Their death or de- 
feat aroused tragic exaltation. Protagonists of Senecan drama 
are revengeful villains. Their death arouses horror. , 

Greek tragedy continued to exert its strongest influence until 
about 1530; but it was unfortunate for dramatic art that, even 
during this period, the dramatists were so imbued with the worst 
features of Senecan tragedy that they caricatured their Greek 
models. Rucellai based the first three acts of Rosmunda (1524) 
on Antigone, while the last two acts are a dramatization of the 
story of Donna Lombarda, who was forced by her husband to 
drink from her father’s skull. This gruesome act is motivated 
by introducing the idea from Antigone that Rosmunda had buried 
her father’s body against the orders of her husband. The join- 
ing of two plots resulted in producing a large amount of action 
in a rather short play. The Greek influence is manifest in the 
following features of the play: the point of attack is just before 
the initial cause of the action; the action is developed up to the 
fourth act almost entirely by the principal characters in a series 
of obligatory scenes; finally, the chorus takes a rather active 
role in the plot. The narration of horrible details by a messenger 
in the fifth act is Senecan. The character of Rosmunda, although 
drawn without any of the depth and beauty of her prototype, is 
at least not the revolting type of heroine who will appear in 
later tragedy of the Renaissance. The playwrights attempted 
to follow Greek models; but their inability to avoid the produc- 
tion of the horrible instead of the tragic is illustrated by Mar- 
telli’s Tullia (ca. 1527). In order to produce this play, which 
is a travesty of Sophocles’ Electra, the author has falsified 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 259 


entirely the historical incident of Tullia driving over the dead 
body of her father. Not content with inventing the character 
of Tarquinia to play the rdle of Clytemnestra, Martelli quenches 
utterly any sympathy for his heroine Tullia, who corresponds to 
the tragic Electra, by making her a woman who has already 
committed murder for the sordid motive of gaining power. Her 
husband, Lucio, the Orestes of this play, is a fitting mate for this 


‘hardened sinner of a wife. 


The play follows Sophocles’ Electra in many scenes and the 
Euripidean version in others, but the play is none the less a 
travesty of its sources. When Lucio faces his wife in the recog- 
nition scene, he pretends, like Orestes, to be carrying his own 
ashes ; but as he does so in an epic speech of 211 lines the pathos 
turns to bathos. Martelli had evidently read his Aristotle care- 
fully and was trying to make the most of the recognition scene. 
The death scene is handled in Greek fashion by having it take 
place within hearing of the audience, instead of having it nar- 
rated after it has occurred. However, the dénouement of the 
play does not follow its model, because it was not possible for 
Martelli to leave the question of the fate of his hero and heroine 
unanswered as could Sophocles or Euripides. When the people 
are reported to be rising against Lucio, the spirit of Romulus 
appears as a deus ex machina and bids them allow Lucio to 
reign in peace. Such is the Machiavellian reward for this 
Machiavellian pair. 

Senecan influence is shown in the long-winded report of a 
dream of Tarquinia which is dragged into the play. Also, Mar- 
telli cannot fail to introduce a ghost, so he has the spectre of 
the murdered king cry for vengeance. The revengeful spirit 
generally appears at the beginning of such plays, but this time 
the ghost just manages to crowd into the play at the climax. 

Thus in spite of a praiseworthy attempt to follow the technique 
of Greek tragedy, of which the sole happy result was to have the 
principal characters develop the plot, Italian tragedy turned back 
to the imitation of the worst features of Senecan tragedy. Ut- 
terly failing to note or understand the delicacy with which the 


260 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Greek playwrights treated the harmatia or tragic fault of the 
hero, they present the fault so that it becomes a disgusting 
crime. One can admire their heroes only for the perfection of 
their villainy. They arouse fear, but never even pity. In 
Tullia, lust for power is the motive actuating these degenerate 
descendants of Electra and Orestes, who were impelled by Neces- 
sity or Fate and with whom we sympathize even if they are 
matricides. In Speroni’s Canace the brother and sister commit 
incest knowingly, whereas CEdipus and Jocasta are innocent at 
heart of their crime. But Gédipus Rex in the hands of Anguil- 
lara becomes a shocking burlesque. The Italians did not under- 
stand that tragedy is not found in severed heads or gory limbs, 
but springs from the death struggle of a great soul against human 
circumstances. te 

The Greek influence was fostered by Alessandro Pazzi who 
translated Iphigenia in Tauris (1524), Cyclops and Gidipus Rex 
(1527), published a Greek text and revised a Latin text of 
Aristotle’s Poetics (1536-7). In 1524 he wrote Didone in Carta- 
gine, a play without act divisions, in which the chorus and 
dialogue is handled in Greek style. The play opens, however, 
at a point very close to the dénouement. A®neas has decided to 
set sail and abandon Dido. After the manner of Seneca, the 
ghost of Sychzus, Dido’s husband, speaks a prologue, and his 
death at the hands of Pygmalion is revenged during the play. 
This gives an opportunity to introduce on the stage the severed 
hands and head of the murderer. The exposition of severed 
limbs on the stage will become one of the usual scenes of Italian 
tragedy. While Greek tragedies, such as Euripides’ Bacchantes, 
are the ultimate source of such procedures, yet the attempt to 
arouse tragic horror in this way always seems to be more in the 
style of Latin and Italian tragedy. It is perhaps due to a 
restraining Greek influence that the bloody details of the scene 
are not insisted upon by Pazzi as they will be by later Italian 
dramatists. The whole play, however, is a dramatization of a 
dénouement and is an early example of the narrowing of the 
dramatic framework. This story, dramatized later in the cen- 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 261 


tury by Giraldi Cinthio and Dolce in Italy, by Jodelle in France, 
and by Marlowe in England readily lends itself to an elegiac form 
of drama consisting of lamentation and narration of the death of 
Dido. The theme of betrayed love is not very dramatic, espe- 
cially if only the betrayal is represented; and the popularity of 
this story may well have had its share in making elegy out of 
tragedy. To make a drama out of this story, the point of attack 
must be set back so as to include the awakening love between 
Dido and Aineas. This was Virgil’s way and afterward the way of 
Marlowe working under dramatic ideals different from the Italian. 

Giraldi Cinthio in his Discourse on Comedy and Tragedy 
(1543) proclaimed the superiority of Latin over Greek tragedy 
on the ground that Seneca excelled the Greek dramatists in 
prudence, gravity, decorum, majesty and sententious maxims. 
Also he pointed out that all Seneca’s tragedies end unhappily; 
and that if he, himself, had written tragedies with a happy end- 
ing it was to satisfy the wishes of the audience, for he deemed 
it better to produce a less praiseworthy play in order to please 
those for whom the play is enacted. Thus the criteria applied 
to serious drama are absolutely undramatic. 

What difference does it make if Cinthio and many others study 
the “obscure” Aristotle and pour forth the results of their 
lucubrations in great tomes? ‘They only succeed in foisting upon 
Aristotle the excuse for their theories of the unity of place and 
time. That is the one tangible result of their adoration of 
Aristotle. They talk learnedly of tragedy, of pity and com- 
passion, and of horror. They sometimes write well of suspense 
and exposition and climax; but it is Seneca whom they admire 
and much of their task consists in twisting Aristotelian theory to 
apply to their own practice founded upon Seneca. It is not 
their critical theory, but their dramatic practice which is im- 
portant. All their study of the Poetics could not save them from 
preferring the prudent, grave, decorous, majestic, sententious — 
Seneca to the greatest dramas that the world had known. 

In 1541 Giraldi produced his Orbecche, which was founded 
on his own novella, and which was the first regular neo-classic 


me 


262 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


tragedy in Italian to be presented on a stage. The play opens 
with a formal prologue undoubtedly borrowed from comedy. It 
is an intimate talk with the audience in a familiar tone inter- 
spersed with flattery in which Giraldi justifies his attempt to 
produce tragedy, hitherto not a popular form of art. 

The first act is a kind of second prologue, in Senecan style, 
introducing the plot. Nemesis calls for the Furies to take 
vengeance on Orbecche and her father Sulmone. The shade 
of Selina then appears and wonders very correctly why Nemesis 
does not entrust the question of wreaking vengeance to her. 
The answer is that Giraldi did not wish to miss any opportunity 
to represent every gruesome figure possible. And why must she 
be revenged? Simply because Sulmone discovered years ago, 
through the agency of his daughter Orbecche, that his wife, 
Selina, was committing incest with their eldest son and there- 
upon murdered both of them! ‘This is the sordid motive of the 
plot. This “injustice” is to be avenged by the death of Or- 
becche and Sulmone. 

In the second act the exposition of the plot is given la- 
boriously, accompanied by line after line of reflections on life 
in general. Orbecche explains to her nurse that she is secretly 
married to Oronte and has two children by him, but that her 
father has informed her that she must marry the King of the 
Parthians. The position of the point of attack has forced the 
narration of this obligatory scene between Sulmone and Or- 
becche—a scene which would have been an excellent means of 
giving exposition and which contains the real motivating inci- 
dent of the plot. The motivation of vengeance is merely trumped 
up in imitation of Seneca. The nurse promises to summon 
Oronte, but she spouts a monologue of such length that he 
finally appears unasked. The sole result of his interview with 
his wife is a decision to have Malecche intercede for them with 
Sulmone. 

In the third act comes the inevitable scene, imitated from 
Octavia, in which Malecche pleads with the tyrant for clemency. 
Sulmone pretends to be won over to good counsel, and an ap- 


: 
; 
; 
7 
p 
7 
i 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 263 


parent reconciliation takes place between the couple and the 
father. This situation of two lovers—here they are married— 
whom an irate father wishes to separate by marrying one of 
them to someone else for the sake of a large dowry, is one be- 
longing to New Comedy rather than to tragedy. In New Comedy 
the father would relent, because the life story of one of the 
pair would be told at this point, and it would be proved that 
the apparent slave was a long-lost child. Curiously enough, 
Oronte makes this speech in a monologue and informs the 
audience that he was a child of noble birth, set adrift in the 
sea, rescued by pirates, and, when he reached Susa, was made 
to perform servile tasks. All this information, which would 
bring about the dénouement of comedy, has nothing to do with 
the unfolding of the plot of this play. It is only explicable, 
together with the prologue and the situation itself, as being the 
result of the influence of comic technique. Comedy was very 
popular at this time; and it is probable that Giraldi Cinthio 
was unconsciously influenced by its construction. Also the scene 
between Orbecche and Oronte begins with each one conscious 
of the other’s presence and speaking in asides. This is a practice 
often found in comedy, but asides are extremely rare in tragedy. - 

This play illustrates the theory that the situation of New 
Comedy is inherently tragic and would often end unhappily 
were it not for the fact that the situation does not really exist. 
In this case, however, Giraldi is working toward the unhappy 
ending. So Oronte’s life story, given in a monologue, changes 
nothing. Sulmone’s reconciliation is only pretense; and the 
play, from this point on, is modelled on Seneca’s Thyestes. In 
the fourth act, a messenger narrates to the chorus how Sul- 
mone cut off Oronte’s hands, murdered the children before their 
father’s eyes, and then killed Oronte. Every harrowing inci- 
dent is described with care. 

In the last act, the severed limbs are presented in covered 
dishes by Sulmone to his daughter, after she has had time to 
tell her dream. Naturally she is somewhat aroused at discover- 
ing the limbs; and drawing the knife from one of the bodies, 


we 


264 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


she stabs Sulmone, who decorously retires behind the scenes 
to die. Here is another body to cut up; and Orbecche appears 
with her father’s head in her hands. Pouring forth imprecations 
and grief, she commits suicide. And after all this, Giraldi 
apologizes for breaking the rules by having Orbecche kill herself 
on the stage. 

The vengeance motive; the appearance of the Furies and 
spectres in the opening; the point of attack no longer in mediis 
rebus but “at the end of things”; the scenes with confidants; 
the pleading in vain for clemency; the narrated horrors; the 
substitution of metaphors and harangues for action; the speeches 
and monologues with no connection with the plot and of un- 
conscionable length; the chorus standing around and spouting 
platitudes; the author’s satisfaction at having pointed a moral 
and adorned a tale with sententious maxims; the replacement of 
tragedy by horror, action by narration, the undramatic by the 
dramatic: these features all bear witness to the fact that Italian 
tragedy has at last come into its own. 

The success of this play established tragedy in high favor, and 
inspired Sperone Speroni “to outdo Giraldi in a piece on a 
similar subject. His Canace (1542) improves upon Orbecche 
only from the point of view of absurdity in its construction and 
in making the situation more disgusting. Were it not for the 
general inartistic impression made by Orbecche, one might have 
some sympathy for the hero and heroine. They have committed 
no crime. Giraldi keeps the incest out of his play proper; 
Speroni goes him one better by making the conscious incest of 
a brother and sister the motivating incident of his plot. These 
degenerates are the hero and heroine of this drama which ob- 
serves all necessary decorum by having the deaths narrated. 

In order to introduce the motive of vengeance, Venus, who 
speaks the formal prologue, is supposed to be desirous of taking © 
revenge upon AXolus for having raised the storm, at Juno’s re- 
quest, about the fleet of A‘neas. Venus, therefore, has inspired 
/Eolus’ twin son and daughter with incestuous love. Spéroni 
solves the question of opening the play with the appearance of 


eye ae ee 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 265 


a Spectre, by introducing the shade of the child of this un- 
happy union, who was murdered by AXolus at birth. The culmi- 
nation of absurdity is reached by having the next scene take 
place just before the birth of the infant. The plot revolves 
about its birth and death. The play actually begins after the 
dénouement. Nothing illustrates better the importance attached 
to having a spectre begin a play. In the controversy which 
arose over this tragedy, the introduction of the shade of the 
child was not questioned from the point of view of common 
sense, but whether the Sixth Book of the Aineid was sufficient 
authority for it! The rest of this curious act shows AXolus 
happy with his son and daughter. A good counsellor fears that 
misfortune may come. In the second act, Canace reveals the 
approaching birth in a monologue; and in the next scene her 
nurse tries to persuade her not to commit suicide. In the 
third act Deiopea, the wife of AZolus, recounts her foreshadow- 
ing dream to her maid. The nurse appears with a basket con- 
taining the new-born infant; and telling Deiopea that it con- 
tains flowers, she gives the basket to a servant to place on the 
altar of Juno. The next act contains the well-known scene of 
a messenger narrating to the chorus how £olus discovered the 
child under the flowers and killed it, and the usual vain counsel 
of clemency offered to AXolus by his counsellor and by his wife. 
This meeting of AXolus and his wife is the only scene carried 
on by two important characters, and even Deiopea is not a 
principal. Only in the fifth act does Macareo make his first 
appearance and the minister tells him how, under the orders 
from Afolus, he bore steel and poison to Canace, who com- 
mitted suicide. Macareo leaves in dispair. A®olus repents and 
tries to save Macareo from suicide; but it is too late. The 
servant narrates how he killed himself. 

The prologue by Venus, the incest inspired by her, the scene 
in which the nurse begs Canace not to die, the repentance of 
ZEolus too late to save his son, recall Seneca’s Hippolytus, but 
the whole construction and tone of the play is such that one 
hesitates to make even Senecan influence responsible for it. Let 


266 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the responsibility rest upon Speroni and upon Giraldi for having 
inspired him with his Orbecche. 

In spite of the popularity of this new form of Italian tragedy 
exemplified in Orbecche and Canace, Lodovico Dolce kept alive 
the influence of Greek technique. His Giocasta from The Pheeni- 
cian Women, his Iphigenia, Medea and Hecuba, reborn, as he 
says, from Euripides, bear witness to an admiration for the 
Greek form, at the same time that his Thieste shows his in- 
terest in Senecan tragedy. Didone (1547) is composed along 
the usual lines of Latin tragedy and has most of the faults of 
the narrow, undramatic form. 

Marianna, one of the bright spots in the darkness of dramatic 
art at this period, is a combination of Greek and Latin construc- 
tion: Perhaps the form of the second. prologue is due to an 
influence of medieval technique. Pluto comes forth from the 
obscure cavern where he torments the damned souls in eternal 
fire and announces that he desires to enrich Hell with Herod. 
He orders Jealousy to enter Herod’s heart and Jealousy sets 
forth on this mission. The expressions employed, the Satanic 
attributes of Pluto, the conception and tone of the scene plainly 
recall scenes in medieval drama in which Satan sends forth a 
devil to take possession of a wicked tyrant. It is not a case 
of personal revenge, which is generally the motive of Italian 
tragedy. Although the introduction of the abstract character 
may be due to the influence of Plautus, the opening of Senecan 
_ tragedy by a Fury or a ghost could hardly have developed into 
such a scene had it not been for the influence of medieval drama. 
But here of course, after Herod has murdered his wife and chil- 
dren and repented of his crimes, there is no Virgin to forgive the 
hardened sinner, and either resuscitate his victims or receive him 
into Heaven. The climax is the usual narration of the deaths 
in the fourth and fifth acts, but the point of attack is so placed 
that the action has time, not only to unfold, but actually to 
arouse suspense. Herod is jealous of his wife, Marianna, who 
clears herself of the false charge of planning to poison her hus- 
band, but who is immediately afterward accused of guilty love 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 267 


for Soemo. Like the heroines of medieval drama she is innocent 
and her presence on the stage is like a breath of fresh air after 
the incestuous adulterous women whose fate we have been be- 
holding with a mixture of pity and disgust. She is a fore- 
runner of Desdemona, just as Herod is of Othello, and the very ' 
fact that we can sympathize with her shows she is not typically 
Senecan. There is the usual counsellor who gives good advice 
in vain, but instead of delivering his appeal in one long act, his 
pleading becomes more intense as the plot unfolds. The prin- 
cipals, instead of carefully avoiding each other, carry on the 
action and no obligatory scene is missing in the first three acts. 
Marianna fights a losing battle, but she fights it before our eyes. 

Euripides’ Phenician Women is not one of his best plays 
from a technical point of view, but was very popular because of 
its oratorical effects. Dolce’s Giocasta follows mainly a Latin 
translation of the Euripidean version in the arrangement of its 
scenes; and hence it avoids many of the usual infelicities of 
the narrower form of Italian tragedy based upon Seneca’s Oc- 
tavia. ‘The opening of the play, however, contains certain addi- 
tional scenes evidently devised to make the exposition clear. 
These playwrights of the Renaissance had to be explicit in ex- 
plaining the situation, because the stories on which the plots 
were founded were not so familiar to their audience as they were 
to the Greeks. Their problem in exposition was the problem 
of the writers of New Comedy. They had much to explain; and 
they were working up to a climax of narration of deaths which 
occupied the fourth and fifth acts. It is for that reason that 
their exposition was long-winded and left little opportunity for 
development of the situation, even had it been their aim to un- 
fold the action by events enacted on the stage. But it was not 
the aim of these playwrights to work up to a great clash of 
contending forces in the latter part of their play. They em- 
ployed the first three acts in explaining the situation and in 
causing the action to develop through one or two events, immi- 
nent when the play begins, to a point where at least one char- 
acter suffered death. To them, the culmination of their artistic 


~~ 


268 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


efforts lay in the narration, not only of the death itself, but of 
what was said by the principal characters at that time. Clever- 
ness in exposition; foreshadowing, except through the usual 
dream; suspense through arousing alternate emotions of hope 
and fear; character drawing, except to make the hero as vil- 
lainous as possible—all this was of little importance. And when 
in certain of these plays there is a faint trace of technical artistry 
along these lines, it is due to either chance or to the classical 
source of the play. Thus Dolce’s Giocasta is better constructed 
than his Didone, because he followed Euripides in the former 
and the narrower Senecan form in the latter. It is doubtful that 
he knew that his Giocasta was a higher form of dramatic art. 
Gascoigne’s translation of Dolce’s Giocasta was to be an im- 
portant medium in acquainting Englishmen with classical tragedy. 
Aretino’s Orazia (1546) is also noteworthy because it is not 
a revenge play working up to a climax of narration describing 
a murder. At the opening of the play, the three Horatii have 
been chosen to decide the fate of Rome by a duel with the three 
Curiatii. The surviving conqueror, Horatius, enraged at Celia, 
his sister, who is affianced to one of the Curiatii and who 
upbraids her brother, slays her. . Then the dramatic question 
arises as to what shall be done with a savior of his country who 
has murdered his sister; and for two acts this question is dis- 
cussed in a very dramatic manner. From the point of view of 
technique this play is the best Italian tragedy of the sixteenth 
century; but it had no influence on the ensuing development of 
dramatic art. It was not Orazia, but Orbecche and Canace, which 
became the models. The critics soon put their stamp of ap- 
proval upon the Senecan form, or rather the Senecan form as it 
had degenerated. Such plays as Orazia and Marianna were lost 
from view in the obfuscation produced by Scaliger and others 
through their admiration of Seneca. The faults of Senecan drama 
and misinterpretation of Aristotle became the bases of criticism 
of dramatic technique. . 
These critics of the Renaissance held that dramatic art was 
primarily a subdivision of the art of poetry, not an art which 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 269 


merely employs dialogue, in poetry or prose, with other arts, 
in order to produce true dramatic effect. For Aristotle, the art 
of poetry was the art of imitation, as well as an art of writing 
in verse. He was fully aware of the synthetic quality of dramatic 
art; but for the men of the Renaissance, drama became a literary 
art, predominantly rhetorical. Aristotle had pointed out that 
tragedy resembles epic poetry in certain respects, especially that 
tragedy was closer in tone to the epic than to comedy. On the 
basis of such resemblance and from the practice of playwrights, 
the critics of the sixteenth century evolved the theory of the 
complete separation of tragedy and comedy. It was considered 
inartistic to introduce any humor into a serious play. The 
separation of tragedy and comedy was a theory which lasted in 
France well into the nineteenth century. Comedy was consid- 
ered a lower form of art. In the Renaissance, men apologized 
for writing it. Even in the early nineteenth century, writers 
of French tragedy stood a better chance of election to the 
Academy than did comic playwrights. This classification of 
dramatic art is false in every respect. Drama is an art in itself 
and is not a subdivision of literature. There is no strict line 
of demarcation between tragedy and comedy. 

“Tragedy,” said Scaliger in his Poetics (1561), “employs kings 
whose affairs are those of the city, fortress, and the camp... . 
All things wear a troubled look; there is a pervading sense of 
doom, there are exiles and death. . . . The matters of tragedy 
are great and terrible, as commands of kings, slaughters, despair, 
suicides, exiles, bereavements, parricides, incests, conflagrations, 
battles, the putting out of eyes, weeping, bewailing, eulogies and 
dirges. . . . A tragedy is the imitation of the adversity of a dis- 
tinguished man.” On the surface this is true of Greek tragedy, 
and it is profoundly true of the Italian tragedy of the Renais- 
sance; but it no more represents the soul of Greek tragedy than 
a contorted face with bloody eyes represents the soul of Cédipus. 
These are mere externalities of tragedy. 

Lest anyone assume from these passages that Scaliger believed 
in the introduction of many events into a tragedy, it is well 


270 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


to consider his model scenario. In speaking of the story of 
Ceyx, he says: 


If a tragedy is to be composed from this last story, it should not 
begin with the departure of Ceyx, for, as the whole time for stage 
representation is only six or eight hours, it is not true to life to 
have a storm arise, and the ship founder, in a part of the sea 
from which no land is visible. Let the first act be a passionate 
lamentation, the chorus to follow with execrations of sea life; the 
second act, a priest with votive offerings conversing with Alcyone 
and her nurse, altars, fire, pious sentiments, the chorus following 
with approbation of the vows; the third act, a messenger announcing 
the rising of a storm, together with rumors as to the ship, the 
chorus to follow with mention of shipwrecks, and much apostrophiz- 
ing of Neptune; the fourth act, tumultuous, the report found to 
be true, the shipwrecks described by sailors and merchants, the 
chorus bewailing the event as though all were lost; the fifth act, 
Alcyone peering anxiously over the sea and sighting far off a corpse, 
followed by the resolution, when she was about to take her own 
life. This sample outline can be expanded by the introduction of 
other characters. 


Such a play is not tragedy, but is narration and elegy. Its 
construction is typical of tragedy of the Renaissance. “The 
action of tragedy should be prolonged until there is some change 
of fortune,” said Minturno. Scaliger considered tragedy to be 
“the imitation of the adversity of a distinguished man.” ‘These 
critics failed to recognize that highly developed Greek tragedy 
contains a clash of contending forces or wills, personified by the 
protagonist and the antagonist. The portrayal of such a clash 
tends to bring these principal characters on the stage and to 
place them face to face in obligatory scenes. The “imitation 
of adversity” and the mere “change of fortune” do not imply a 
clash of wills and do not necessarily imply the existence of a 
great struggle or of an important antagonist, as is shown by the 
fact that Scaliger’s scenario fulfills the requirements of a “change 
of fortune” and “imitation of adversity.” ‘Thus tragedy, because 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 271 


of this conception, became narrative. The principals lamented 
and were talked about, more than they acted. The protagonist 
and antagonist bewailed their lot to confidants, instead of fight- 
ing out the question man to man. 

Although Aristotle’s definition of tragedy was repeatedly 
quoted to prove that drama was acted, not narrated, the critics 
failed to see that the important question for the playwright was 
not the difference between an epic poem and a tragedy, but the 
difference between representing an event on the stage or narrating 
events off the stage. The critics and playwrights knew Aristotle’s 
statement that there should be nothing improbable among the 
actual incidents, but if it be unavoidable it should be outside 
the tragedy, like the improbability in Gdipus Rex of Sophocles. 
But the playwright used the first three acts for exposition and 
possibly one or two events in the action, in order to reach the 
narrated climax or dénouement in the fourth and fifth acts. 

In order to explain the reasons for narrating instead of rep- 
resenting the tragic events of the climax upon the stage, the 
critics relied upon the following statement from Horace’s Ars 
Poetica: 


An action is either represented on the stage, or, being done else- 
where, is there related. The things which enter by the ear affect 
the mind more languidly, than such as are submitted to the faithful 
eyes and what a spectator presents to himself. You must not, how- 
ever, bring upon the stage things fit only to be acted behind the 
scenes; and you must take away from view many actions, which 
elegant description may soon after deliver in the presence of the 
spectators. Let not Medea murder her sons before the people; nor 
the execrable Atreus openly dress human entrails; nor let Progne be 
metamorphosed into a bird, Cadmus into a serpent. Whatever you 
show me in this manner, not able to give credit to, I detest. 


The theory as a whole is sound dramatic technique and one 
which any dramatist might well ponder over. Had the drama- 
tists, or even the theorists, grasped the full significance of the 


22 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


statement, there would have been far more dramatic action and — 


less narration and vain philosophizing in classical tragedy of 
the Renaissance; but several factors militated against the ap- 
plication of the theory. Seneca constructed his tragedies so that 
they would contain rhetorical descriptions. He appealed to the 
ear and not to the eye. If he places action on the stage, it is 
only because by so doing he can still present horror in full 
detail. His Medea does murder her sons before the people, 
and human and animal entrails are openly exposed in his plays. 
The Italians did not have murders represented on the stage; but 
throughout the history of all classical and neo-classical drama 
there are suicides and deaths from poison enacted. Although 


they did not literally dress human entrails on the stage, they 


constantly exposed severed limbs and heads to view. But the 
narration and the philosophizing of Seneca were looked upon by 
them with favor. The place of the point of attack made lengthy 
exposition necessary and precluded much appeal to the eye. 
They found that description of horrible incidents was actually 
more horrible than enacting them. Therefore they did not apply 
the principle of appealing to the eye by placing action on the 
stage. The second half of this passage from Horace was the 
important part to them, for it justified “elegant” description. 
No dramatist or critic of the Renaissance would have thought 
of saying to the messenger, as does Macbeth: “Thou comest to 
use thy tongue: thy story quickly.” They believed that deaths 
should not take place on the stage because they would be shock- 
ing. Giraldi Cinthio lays down a universal rule that the char- 
acters in a play should do or say nothing on the stage which they 
would not probably do or say in their own home. But if some- 
thing indecent must be put on the comic stage, it should be 
veiled, so that maidens may hear it without censure. The jeune 
fille au thédtre was already beginning to influence dramatic art. 
Thus, for several reasons, the selection of scenes to be rep- 
resented was made, not on dramatic grounds, but on the basis 
of decorum and of rhetorical appeal. 

Horace said of the point of attack that the poet does not “trace 


a 


OS 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 273 


the rise of the Trojan war from Leda’s eggs; he always hastens 
on to the event; and hurries away his reader into the midst of 
interesting circumstances (in medias res), no otherwise than if 
they were already known.” This theory may be well for the 
epic poet who has plenty of time and opportunity to explain by 
narration any previous circumstance; but the dramatic poet 
deals with characters who act; and it is not always possible to 
explain circumstances without committing the inartistic blunder 
of stopping the development of the action. Also the phrase in 
medias res is indefinite and many a play of the Renaissance 
begins “at the end of things.” 

Aristotle states his theory of the point of attack as follows: 
“Now a whole is that which has a beginning, middle, and end. 
A beginning is that which is not itself necessarily after any- 
thing else and which has naturally something else after it; an 
end is that which is naturally after something itself, either as 
its necessary or usual consequence, and with nothing else after 
it; and a middle, that which is by nature after one thing and 
also has another after it. A well constructed plot, therefore, 
cannot either begin or end at any point one likes.” 

This passage, translated and commented upon as it was by 
these critics, exerted no discernible influence upon the dramatists ; 
and the critics themselves failed to understand all that it implies. 
In order to understand the problem of construction as viewed 
by Aristotle, it must be borne in mind that a plot to him is a 
series of events in necessary or probable sequence and that there 
is a great difference between a thing happening propter hoc and 
post hoc. Not temporal sequence but causal sequence of events 
is dramatic. One of the great differences between the technique 
of medieval drama and Greek tragedy is that the former is con- 
structed on the plan of temporal sequence and the latter accord- 
ing to causal sequence. In the story of CEdipus the exposure of 
the child Gdipus by no means brings in its wake the future 
events, either from the point of view of necessity or probability. 
Nor does the murder of Laius by (dipus, or even the marriage 
of Jocasta and CEdipus presuppose the rest of the tragedy. But 


274 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


when CEdipus receives the reply from the oracle that the only 
way to put an end to the suffering of the people is to discover 
the murderer of Laius, the rest of the plot follows in necessary 
and probable sequence. This is the Aristotelian “beginning,” 
the correct point of attack. It is practically the beginning of 
Sophocles’ play, being preceded only by the necessary scene of 
exposition. Thus the Aristotelian “beginning” corresponds to 
the initial cause of the action. 

These theorists say very little in regard to the art of exposi- 
tion. Naturally the first act is the place indicated by them for 
the explanation of antecedent events and present circumstances. 
Giraldi Cinthio says that the first act contains the argument or 
exposition; in the second act the things in the argument begin 
to move toward the end; in the third act come obstacles and 
troubles; in the fourth act means are offered for remedying the 
troubles; and in the fifth act is given the desired end with the 
necessary solution to the argument. Commenting on the divi- 
sion of a play formulated by Latin grammarians into protasis, 
epitasis and catastrophe he says the protasis, or exposition, may 
extend into the second act. Castelvetro would admit the formal 
prologue in comedy to explain the plot, because in comedy the 
subject not being historical or mythological is therefore un- 
known; but since the subject of tragedy is known to the spectator 
a formal prologue should not be employed. He criticizes the 
prologues of Euripides as being lacking in verisimilitude. Ac- 
cording to Scaliger the beginning of a comedy presents a con- 
fused state of affairs, whereas a tragedy opens more tranquilly 
_than a comedy. 

The value of foreshadowing is apparent to Castelvetro, who 
says that the future should be predicted obscurely, but that the 
past should be clearly explained. Minturno says the audience 
must be kept in suspense until the end. Scaliger says that the 
protasis is the part of the play in which the substance of the 
affair is set forth and narrated without telling the outcome, for 
it is more artful to keep the mind of the auditor in suspense. If 
the outcome is foretold, it is made cold. 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 275 


Giraldi Cinthio pointed out that the events of less cruel plays 
should happen so that the spectators will be in suspense until 
the end, which, being happy, will leave them consoled. He held 
that this keeping the audience in suspense ought to be so carried 
out by the poet that the auditor will not be in darkness; but 
the action should proceed step by step, unfolding the story so 
that the spectator will see the end brought about, but will be 
in doubt as to how it will come out. This is an excellent state- 
ment of the theory of suspense and even implies the use of 
foreshadowing and finger-posts; but keeping or half disclosing 
a secret is only a part of what is meant by suspense. The scenes 
arousing alternate hope and fear; the stressing of fear in a play 
with a happy ending and vice versa; Euripides’ use of the pro- 
jogue to foreshadow and arouse suspense; the unfolding of a 
plot, as in Gidipus Rex, in such a way that everything finally 
turns out contrary to our hope and desire and yet without break- 
ing the logical and necessary sequence of events—these methods 
of arousing suspense, employed so artistically by the Greek 
dramatists, were apparently unknown to the Renaissance critics 
and dramatists. Even the suspense found in the original Greek 
play is sometimes entirely destroyed by the Italian who rewrites 
it. Anguillara in his version of Gdipus, introduces at the begin- 
ning a scene between Tiresias and his daughter in which every 
detail of the situation is described. Thus he breaks down the 
whole artistic construction of the play and lessens suspense im- 
measurably. A clear distinction must be made between knowl- 
edge of the plot brought into the theatre by the spectator and 
knowledge imparted to the spectator by a character in the play. 
The dramatist should never take into consideration pre-knowl- 
edge of the plot. It is something beyond his control and it rarely 
militates against suspense or enjoyment of the play, because if 
the spectator is interested in the representation he does not call 
to mind his previous information. Indeed, he can close his mind 
to his pre-knowledge of any circumstance. But when a char- 
acter gives information and discloses secrets which should be 
kept, the spectator cannot close his ears; and knowledge gained 


276 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


in this way is all-important. As Scaliger said: “Although you 
may learn everything from the argument in the short analysis 
of a play, yet the indication is so summary and brief that it 
rather arouses curiosity than satisfies it.” 

Aristotle made no mention of acts; but Horace laid down 
the rule in regard to tragedy that there should be five acts, no 
more, no less. The division into acts probably grew up as the 
Greek chorus became a less vital part of the play and its songs 
marked pauses in the action. By the middle of the third cen- 
tury B.c., comedy, as well as tragedy, seems to have been divided 
into five acts. The dramatists and theorists of the Renaissance 
accepted this division. Of all the so-called rules of drama it 
was the least valid, the least questioned, and the least violated. 
An audience may need a few minutes of mental and physical 
repose during a play; but that there should be four such periods, 
no more nor less, is a theory with no reasonable or artistic basis. 
The practice was observed wherever and whenever neo-classical 
drama was produced. Even romanticists such as Hugo clung 
to it with strange tenacity, and Ibsen did not avoid this mean- 
ingless convention in his first important play, Lady Inger of 
Ostrat. 

In the nineteenth century, the act had become a definite en- 
tity, marked by a drop curtain denoting a lapse of time. Each 
act was likely to represent a different scene and contained a 
new development of the action. Then the number of acts be- 
came important. But the five-fold division had no more effect 
on the construction of drama in the Renaissance than a three-, 
four- or six-fold division would have had, because the play, not 
the act, was the unit. One thinks of Shakespeare’s plays as 
composed of scenes, of Hugo’s plays as composed of acts, of 
Sophocles’ plays as composing a complete entity. So neo-classi- 
cal plays, in spite of their five acts, have no clearly marked 
divisions. The stage is simply left vacant four times during the 
play, for an empty stage, as Donatus said, marked the end of 
an act. In order to avoid an empty stage during an act, the 
rule of the linking of scenes was evolved. At least one char- 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 277 


acter of a preceding scene had to take part in the following 
scene. The rule was so logical, so hampering and so useless 
that it survived for centuries. Nothing is more tenacious than 
a convention hoary with age. 

Aristotle believed that the function of tragedy was to arouse 
certain emotions and to purge the mind of them through a kind 
of homeopathic treatment. Thus he justified the existence of 
tragedy which Plato would banish from his ideal republic on the 
ground that tragedy arouses emotions, and emotions are dan- 
gerous. For Aristotle, the ethical aim of tragedy was to induce 
a catharsis of troublesome, painful emotions or passions. Aris- 
totle logically preferred an unhappy ending for tragedy, because 
such a dénouement performed the function of tragedy and 
fulfilled its ethical aim better than an outcome in which the 
virtuous were rewarded and the wicked were punished. He 
assigned this double ending of poetic justice to a lower rank 
in the artistic scale. 

In general, the theorists and dramatists preferred an unhappy 
ending, although the critics admitted the happy ending in theory 
and the playwrights employed it at times, though rarely. Senecan 
drama aroused horror, and many Renaissance tragedies were 
composed in the same spirit. Certain critics grossly mistrans- 
lated the Greek word ¢6fo¢ as orrore or terrore. Whatever emo- 
tion Aristotle meant by this word, he certainly did not mean 
“horror” or “terror.” The theorists paid lip service to Aris- 
totle’s theory of the function of tragedy; but the whole spirit 
of the art had changed. 

In place of the Aristotelian conception of the ethical aim of 
tragedy, the idea grew up that the aim was to teach morals by 
giving examples of vice and virtue. Scaliger held that it was 
not enough for a play to strike the spectator with admiration or 
consternation, but it should teach, move and please. This was 
the justification of the sententious sayings which, according to 
Scaliger, were the very foundation and props of tragedy. It was 
the justification of the tirades on life, power, the age, etc., which 


278 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Giraldi Cinthio said should be long. In addition to being 
rhetorical, tragedy became directly didactic. 

The critics, following Aristotle, warned against having the 
dénouement depend upon the god from a machine. They held 
correctly that the solution of the plot should be brought about 
by the logical development of the action. They failed to see 
that, since a Greek tragedy contains a problem, the ending, happy 
or unhappy, must be the answer to the problem. The answer 
must satisfy, not man-made law, which is often unjust; nor 
poetic justice, which does not exist; but a human sense of jus- 
tice, which is inexorable. 

The Aristotelian ideal hero was a “man not pre-eminently 
virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon 
him, not by vice and depravity, but by some error of judgment, 
of the number of those in the enjoyment of great reputation and 
prosperity.” Only too often in Italian tragedy, vice and de- 
pravity are the outstanding features of the hero. The Latin 
grammarians had insisted upon nobility of rank, rather than 
of character. The critics of this period accepted this trans- 
formation of the hero in theory. The dramatists had already 
produced plenty of examples of heroes whose tragic fault was 
not an error of judgment, but a desire for bloody revenge. The 
Marlovian Tamburlaines and Edwards, the Shakespearean Rich- 
ards were not to escape the phenomenon of the degradation of 
the ideal tragic hero which took place in Italy. Yet, Hamlet is 
the purified hero, who must avenge a father’s death with blood. 

The dramatists chose a point of attack close to the dénouement 
for several reasons. This was the usual opening of Greek and 
Senecan tragedy. Horace was an authority for plunging i” 
medias res. They were attempting to represent a single change 
of fortune and were more than willing to narrate the causes 
which led to the reversal. The critics of the Renaissance found 
an explanation for this procedure in the statement made by 
Aristotle that the epic differs from tragedy “in its length— 
which is due to its action having no fixed limit of time, whereas 
tragedy endeavors to keep as far as possible within a single 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 29 


revolution of the sun, or something near that.” It is doubtful 
that any Greek dramatist modified the construction of his play 
in order to conform to this practice, which arose from the in- 
fluence of worship of the dead hero on Greek tragedy. Aristotle 
did not advise it because it would make the action of tragedy 
seem more real or life-like. He was not a realist. Nor did he 
state it as an absolute rule to be followed. In the Renaissance 
this simple statement of fact was not only transformed into what 
was called the rule of the unity of time, but also a second rule 
of the unity of place was deduced from it and from the com- 
mon practice of the dramatists. 

Giraldi Cinthio makes the first reference to the unity of time 
when he says that the action of tragedy should occupy the space 
of a day or a little more. Robortello discusses the question as 
to whether “a single revolution of the sun” means twelve or 
twenty-four hours; and he restricts the time to twelve hours, 
because people are supposed to sleep at night. Segni, however, 
lengthens the unity of time to twenty-four hours on the ground 
that tragic acts are likely to be committed at night. Maggi 
explains the unity of time by the fact that the drama is rep- 
resented before our eyes and if we should see the actions of a 
whole month performed in about the time that it takes to 
perform the play, that is, two or three hours, the performance 
would be absolutely incredible. “For example,” says Maggi, “if 
in a tragedy we should send a messenger to Egypt, and he 
would return in an hour, would not the spectator regard this as 
ridiculous?” As Dr. Spingarn has pointed out, if the action is 
limited to the time of representation, it follows that the place 
of the action must be limited to the place of representation, 
although such a limitation is a piece of realism wholly out of 
keeping with the true dramatic illusion. Scaliger insisted that 
“as the whole time for stage representation is only six or eight 
hours, it is not in accordance with the exact appearance of 
truth to have a storm arise and the ship founder in a part of 
the sea from which no land is visible.’ He also says that no 


280 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


character must be sent from Delphi to Athens or from Athens 
to Thebes in a moment of time. 

Castelvetro finally formulated the rule of the unity of place 
so easily deduced from these ideas.. For him the unity of time 
was the time that it would take to accomplish the action in 
real life. He held that in tragedy the area of the place in which 
the action is accomplished is restricted, not only to a city or 
town or country or a similar situation, but to that space which 
could be visible to one person. Since the restricted place is the 
stage, thus the restricted time is that during which the spectators 
can sit at ease in the theatre. This cannot be longer than twelve 
hours, because of the necessity of eating, drinking and sleeping. 
“Tragedy,” he continues, ‘ought to have as subject an action 
which happened in a small place and in a short time. It is not 
possible to have it understood by the spectators that many nights 
and days have passed when it is plainly evident to them that 
only a few hours have passed.” 

Following this argument to its logical conclusion, one can 
argue that a scene in Athens cannot be represented on a stage 
in Rome, and an actor speaking in Italian cannot represent the 
Greek Cdipus. Thus the whole case of dramatic art is thereby 
thrown out of court. Such is the logical conclusion of the argu- 
ments in favor of the unity of place and of time based upon 
verisimilitude! Aristotle’s theory that a convincing impossibility 
is preferable to an unconvincing possibility, might have served to 
demolish such unsound arguments; but his ideal of artistic truth 
became an ideal of verisimilitude which meant an inartistic 
transcript of reality. The result was a drama which was neither 
true nor real, and hardly realistic. The critics failed to realize 
that the representation of facts of real life does not necessarily 
produce artistic truth. 

The originality of these critics consisted in their explanation 
of the practice and their reasons for approving it. Most classical 
tragedies of the Italian Renaissance, written before Castelvetro 
formulated the rules of the unities, conformed to them. Thus 
no change was wrought by this theory on contemporary drama; 


ITALIAN TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 281 


but the whole theory of play construction underwent a great 
change by the insistence upon the three unities and upon the 
ideal expressed by the awkward word “verisimilitude,” which is 
so indefinite and capable of so many interpretations as to be 
almost meaningless. 

The theory of the unity of action was, of course, Aristotelian 
and the phrases “unity of time” and “unity of place” were de- 
rived from the idea of the ‘“‘oneness” of the action. The idea has 
been variously interpreted. From one point of view, the medieval 
plays on the Creation, the Fall, the Redemption and the Judg- 
ment observe a broad unity of action, although Aristotle would 
have denied that they observed the rule. Interpreted in the 
light of Greek tragedies which Aristotle admired, it makes for 
simplicity and yet completeness of the action. It militates 
against the introduction of all incidents, either by representation 
or narration, which are not vitally necessary to the development 
of the action. It means, as Aristotle said, that “the story, as 
an imitation of an action, must represent one action, a complete 
whole, with its several incidents so closely connected that the 
transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and 
dislocate the whole.” 

Strictly applied it removes all episodes constituting a sub-plot 
and precludes the joining of two problems not interdependent, 
as is done in The Merchant of Venice. Not until the close of 
the nineteenth century will the rule of the unity of action be dis- 
carded as non-essential. 

The strict application of the rule is often salutary for dramatic 
art. It sounded the death knell of the long-winded confusion 
of medieval drama. If the simple is the beautiful, the unity of 
action, applied with a skilful touch, produces beauty. But in 
the Renaissance it was the unity of time and the unity of place 
which became of paramount importance in the theory of dramatic 
art. Thus Castelvetro deduces the unity of action from the 
unities of time and place. He says: “But Aristotle might have 
well seen that in tragedy and in comedy the plot contains a 
single action or two, which, because of mutual interdependence 


282 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


can be considered one, and rather of one person than of a people, 
not because the plot is not fitted to contain more actions, but 
because the space of time, at the most twelve hours, in which 
the action is represented and the restricted space in which the 
action is represented, do not permit a multitude of actions, or 
indeed action of a people, indeed, very often do not permit an | 
entire action, if the action is somewhat long.” 

Thus the unity of action becomes entirely subordinate to the 
unities of time and place, which in turn become the touchstone 
of dramatic technique. The observance of these two rules made 
tragedy more artistic according to Castelvetro, because “it is 
more marvellous when a great mutation of a hero’s fortune is 
made in a very limited time and a very limited place, than 
when it is made in a longer time and in varied and larger places.” 
Aristotle’s wise theory of the point of attack goes by the board. 
Horace’s im medias res had to be interpreted to mean a point in 
the story not more than twelve hours from the time of the 
climax. No matter what dramatic incident takes place more 
than twelve hours before the close, it had to be narrated. No 
matter what dramatic event happens away from the one place 
represented on the stage, it had to be narrated. The point of 
attack, exposition, the selection of scenes, the unity of action 
were conditioned by so-called rules based upon entirely fallacious 
arguments of verisimilitude. Artistic drama was sacrificed to 
inartistic realism. The true dramatic illusion was jeopardized 
in order to preserve a false illusion of place and time. This is 
the contribution of the Italian critics of the Renaissance to the 
theory of dramatic art! 


CHAPTER X 


ad 


ITALIAN COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE, 
THE PASTORAL 


ETRARCH’S love of classical literature inspired him to 

write a comedy, now lost, entitled Philologia. Other come- 
dies in Latin and modelled on plays of Plautus and Terence 
were composed for the reader. Among them were Vergerio’s 
Paulus (ca. 1390) and Ugolini’s Philogenia (before 1437). But 
such plays were without special influence except that they pre- 
pared for the vogue of comedy in Italian based on classical 
models and produced on the stage. 

In 1427 Cusanus brought from Germany to Rome a manu- 
script of twelve comedies of Plautus, whose work had been little 
known throughout the Middle Ages. Scholars began to study 
these plays, to fill in gaps in the dialogue, and even to add whole 
scenes to replace the lost ending of Awulularia. Terence had 
been better known than Plautus up to this time; but now his 
influence was no longer paramount. Comedies of both drama- 
tists were produced by Pomponius Letus in Rome. Amphitryo 
and the Menechmi became so popular that people knew them 
by heart. Plots depending on mistaken identity through simi- 
larity of appearance were frequently employed in Italian come- 
dies inspired by these plays. | 

Up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, comedy had 
not been rigorously classical. Boiardo’s Timone, Accolti’s Vir- 
ginia are medieval in technique and stage setting. Even Philo- 
genia, written in Latin, keeps the action on the stage, while the 
hero himself woos the heroine. Recognitions, mistaken iden- 
tity, long-lost children were rarely used as plot material. 
Stephanium by Harmonius Marsus, however, is based upon 
Aulularia and is a typical classical comedy. Zamberti’s Dolo- 

283 


284 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


techne (1504) also ends with a recognition, which removes 
the obstacles from the path of the lovers. It contains two 
pairs of lovers after the manner of Terence, and the situation 
is very complicated. Nardi’s Amicizia (1509-12) is founded 
upon Boccaccio’s 97th novella, but is cast in the classical mould. 
It is the story of a man who gives his wife to a friend; and 
when the man is wrongly accused of murder, the friend tries to 
assume responsibility for the crime. A happy ending ensues 
when the real murderer confesses. The plot is reminiscent of 
a miracle play without the miracle. It is far removed from 
the classical type of plot; and the play shows how unfit the 
construction of Latin comedy is for a romantic plot which con- 
tains striking scenes but which the author does not put on the 
stage. The trial, for example, has to be messengered because 
of the street-scene. The medieval dramatists had placed all 
situations on the stage. As soon as Latin comedy became the 
model, the playwrights confined themselves to a narrow range 
of enacted scenes. Unless they employed Latin plots, their 
work was awkward. Amicizia might have become at least a 
“thriller” under the hand of an English playwright of the six- 
teenth century. But the Italians turned more and more to the 
close imitation of classical comedy. 

Ariosto’s Cassaria (1508) and Suppositi (1509), Bibbiena’s 
Calandria (1508, acted in 1513-1514), Machiavelli’s Clizia 
(1512-1520) are plays built almost entirely on the framework of 
Latin comedy, especially of Plautine comedy. In Calandria the 
mistaken identity of twins, imitated from the Menechmi, is 
made more complicated by having the twins a brother and sister, 
who dress at times in clothes of the opposite sex. The scenes 
in Calandria in which the old husband is shown by the tricky 
servant how to die and is loaded into a coffin to be carried to 
his supposed. inamorata are more in the spirit of the novella 
than of Latin comedy. The unfaithful husband and wife, 
neither of whom suffers punishment for their extra-matrimonium 
activities, are medieval rather than classical figures. The gen- 
eral cynical tone is that of the farce, although Plautine in- 


ITALIAN COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 285 


fluence would by no means preclude cynicism. Except in these 
respects, these plays contain little which would have seemed 
strange to the Roman audience before whom Plautine comedy 
was originally played. 

Machiavelli’s Mandragola (1530), Ariosto’s Lena (1529) and 
his Negromante (1530), contain elements which are more origi- 
nal. The trick of placing a principal character in a box or chest, 
which is merely a humorous episode in Calandria, now becomes 
an integral part of the plot in the Lena and the Negromante. 
This points once more to the influence of the novella as a par- 
tial substitute for Latin comedy. 

Of greater importance, however, is the introduction of the 
Necromancer who is a real character and is the central figure 
who keeps the action developing through his particular person- 
ality. Interest was not centred in the rise and fall of the for- 
tunes of the lovers or of the characters which played the most 
active roles in the unfolding of the plot. In the Negromante 
there is a plot involving the fortunes of lovers, and the obstacles 
separating them suddenly fade away in the light of a recognition 
scene, but the central figure is the Necromancer, a scoundrel 
who prepares the way for Moliére’s Tartufe. The play does not 
finish with the convenient and timely recognition, but with the 
downfall of this villain, who is really the hero, as the name of 
the piece implies. In Calandria there is also a necromancer; 
but the great difference between Ruffo and Ariosto’s Necromancer 
is that, while both are impostors, the former is relatively unim- 
portant. The plot of Calandria could develop almost as well 
without him; but in Ariosto’s comedy the machinations and the 
character of the astrologer and his final downfall form the plot 
of the whole play. Out of elements which were episodic in 
Calandria, Ariosto constructed the mainspring of a plot. He 
introduced into comedy a hero of the villain type, such as is 
found in Italian tragedy and was to appear later in Elizabethan 
_ tragedy. As a result, interest in the plot assumes greater im- 
portance. The hard and fast mould of Latin comedy is broken. 

Machiavelli’s Mandragola is a curious combination of medie- 


286 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


val, Italian, and classical elements. The play deals with a 
young man who has become enamored of Lucrezia, the young 
wife of the old Nicia, on merely hearing of her beauty. A 
journey from Paris to Florence in search of this far-away princess 
results in his falling completely in love with this woman, who 
at the beginning of the play is a virtuous spouse. This is all 
which is supposed to have taken place before the point of at- 
tack. There are no concealed or forgotten identities or long- 
lost children. There is no complicated series of events, no 
painful preparation for the introduction of the long arm of 
chance in the last act to solve any trumped-up problem. As 
in the medieval farce, the point of attack is practically at the 
beginning of the story and the situation actually exists. 

The scenes of exposition, however, are handled as in Latin 
comedy. The young lover explains his sudden passion to his 
servant. The question to be solved is also the invariable ques- 
tion of how to overcome the obstacles separating a young lover 
and the object of his desires; but the fact that the heroine 
is married and is virtuous introduces an element which is -by 
no means classical. Even in Calandria the question of marital 
infidelity forms a part of the situation; but the ending of the 
story was the regular “moral” ending, brought about by a sud- 
den recognition. In the Mandragola the element of marital 
infidelity so modifies the whole situation that scenes and situa- 
tions unknown in Latin comedy are introduced. The old hus- 
band is tricked, as old simpletons are deceived in the plays of 
Plautus and Terence. The heroine is also somewhat tricked; 
but two of the most important scenes show how a monk is per- 
suaded to undertake the task of overcoming the virtuous 
scruples of the modest wife, and then how the monk, together 
with the mother, persuade Lucrezia to submit to an unspeakable 
plan to deceive her husband. Of the cynical immorality of 
these situations the less said the better; but nevertheless these 
scenes strike a note never heard even in Plautus. They give 
an opportunity for dramatic progression; whereas, in Latin 
comedy, most of the time was occupied with devising and at- 


——_—. = 


ITALIAN COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 287 


tempting to carry out plans to unite the lovers until one suc- 
ceeded, or until an unexpected dénouement cleared up the situa- 
tion. In the Mandragola two plans are discussed. One is 
decided upon. It succeeds; and the play ends with Lucrezia 
deciding that, since her husband is such an old simpleton, she will 
accept the young Callimaco as her lover. 

For the first time in comedy here is a young heroine whose 
character develops and undergoes a complete change, who is 
something more than a lay figure. The virtuous, modest, faith- 
ful wife of the first act becomes a cynical mistress, complacently 
standing between her accepted lover and duped husband, and 
ordering that ten ducats be given to the monk who has pro- 
cured her so much unexpected happiness. One may deplore 
the morals of the principals in Machiavelli’s play, but his people 
have individual characters. The comic stage had ceased tem- 
porarily to be the domain of marionettes or, at most, types cut 
from the same patterns. 

However, the cessation was only temporary. The Italians 
realized that comedy should present a wide range of charac- 
ters; but the theorists, following their classical ancestors, dis- 
cussed and described the various types, and the characters re- 
mained simply types, as they had been in Latin comedy. The 
Italians were particularly disposed to create stock characters. In 
their commedia dell’ arte the same actor always played the same 
role. Scenarios were written which showed what the stock char- 
acter did in each play. The dialogue was improvised. The 
role was stencilled. This procedure might easily have been 
followed in many Italian comedies, so stereotyped had become 
the plot and characters in these neo-classical plays. 

The Mandragola is more a highly developed medieval farce 
in situation, tone, and conclusion than a Latin comedy. More 
of the action, perhaps every scene, would have been represented 
on the stage in purely medieval comedy. The heroine in this 
play, as in most Italian comedies of the Renaissance, appears 
rarely. Undoubtedly the setting of the scene in the street kept 
many scenes off the stage; but the utterly indecent situations 


288 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


in these Italian comedies, like the disgustingly horrible situations 
in Italian tragedies, could scarcely have been represented. The 
medieval dramatists were evidently almost ignorant of the pos- 
sibility of reporting important events; but just as the Italian 
writers of tragedy led up to a messenger’s speech describing 
horrors in every detail, so these comic playwrights found it ex- 
pedient to describe their unrepresentable scenes. There is not 
much more action on the stage in Italian comedy than in Latin 
comedy, although these authors were familiar with medieval 
drama which kept events before the audience. 

Machiavelli broke away from the traditional technique of 
Latin comedy in certain respects. Aretino and Grazzini emu- 
lated him in attempting to disengage Italian comedy from. its 
Latin prototype. Aretino introduced the element of satire and 
emulated Ariosto in centering the interest upon a principal char- 
acter, who is dominated by one characteristic, such as hypocrisy 
(I[pocrito), misogamy (Marescalco) or theorizing (Filosofo). 
This kind of character was a natural development of stock char- 
acters, which had become somewhat abstract even in Latin 
comedy. The slave was tricky; the parasite, a glutton; the old 
man, stupid. They were types with a dominant characteristic. 
Plautus had also produced in Euclio a personification of avari- 
ciousness, in the braggart warrior a personification of boastful- 
ness. Ariosto and Aretino added to this gallery of portraits. 
The Italians thus prepared the way for the English comedy 
of humors, and for the long line of French plays in the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, in which the principal charac- 
ter is the personification of some abstract trait, such as 
hypocrisy, flattery, avariciousness, mendacity, truthfulness, etc. 

Unfortunately Aretino does not relate the action to his prin- 
cipal character in a dramatic manner. His plots do not de- 
velop, whether they are founded on simple or complex situa- 
tions. The plot of the Marescalco rests upon the fact that the 
Duke of Mantua has ordered the overseer of his stables, a 
woman-hater, to take a wife. This gives an opportunity for 
satire on marriage and for joking the misogamist. The play is 


“ITALIAN COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 289 


brought to a conclusion by dressing up a page as a pretended 
fiancée and unveiling the “bride.” 

Talanta has a very complicated situation founded on the | 
Menechmi in which Aretino goes Plautus one better by intro- 
ducing triplets, whom he dresses in clothes of the opposite sex, 
and one of whom is painted to resemble a Moor. There are the 
usual tangled love affairs resulting from such a trumped-up 
situation, and these affairs are brought to a happy termination 
by a recognition scene. There is a difference, however, between 
a complicated situation and an interesting plot developing from 
the entanglement, as is proved by the fact that in this play 
there is practically no action at all. The situation is static, 
with the result that the actual plot is as unimportant in Talanta 
as in Aretino’s other plays. Scene follows upon scene without 
affecting the fortunes of a single one of the many heroes and 
heroines. The several love affairs are loosely connected by the 
fact that two of these young people—the supposed Moor and 
the supposed slave—are given to the courtezan, Talanta, by two 
of her lovers; but the whole complicated situation, like the sim- 
ple situation of the Marescalco, is merely a background for hu- 
morous scenes and satire. Almost any other set of circum- 
stances would have served Aretino as well for his purpose. 
Many scenes in this comedy could be introduced into any other 
of Aretino’s comedies without disturbing the framework of either 
play, for Aretino’s plots are all buried under an avalanche of 
dialogue. With the possible exception of his hypocrite, his per- 
sonages are mouthpieces for a satirist who is too wordy to be 
really humorous on the stage. The greatest fault of these 
comedies is that they would gain little or nothing by being acted. 

Ariosto’s Negromante had shown the way to a form of com- 
edy in which there is a plot revolving about the character of the 
principal personage. Aretino’s principal characters do little to 
carry on whatever action there is. Like the situations, they are 
static. The types which Aretino’s people represent are satir- 
ized; but there is no rise and fall in their fortunes, no peripeteia 
causing a change in their outlook in life. Hence there is no 


290 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


dramatic sympathy aroused and little interest is created. The 
difference between a humorous story or satire in dialogue form 
and a comedy, lies in the fact that, while the reader will be 
content to laugh at the witty or satirical ideas, no matter who 
says them, the spectator of the play wishes to take sides for 
or against the character who is making witty or satirical remarks. 
In order to take sides, the spectator must become interested in 
the fate of some character or in some moral issue which is de- 
cided during the play. A reversal must not be wrought at the 
end of a play by a recognition scene or by a sudden change of 
character. The development must come slowly, logically and 
in such a way that one is constantly conscious of it. At least, 
the spectator must realize that a change is always possible. 
Thus in Aretino’s Talanta, there is a happy ending which brings 
a change of fortune; but the peripeteia is too sudden, too me- 
chanical and is not the result of anything said or done during 
the play. 

Aretino produced satire in dialogue. As a rule, this is all that 
a bitter satirist can do. To be a great dramatist one must love 
humanity even because of its faults and weaknesses. The true 
dramatist must be intensely interested in the fate of his char- 
acters, both good and bad. He must work out their salvation 
or damnation. He cannot take as contemptuous a view of vice 
or virtue as does the born satirist. Aretino’s fault as a drama- 
tist was that in breaking with Latin comedy, he broke away 
from dramatic art. 

Grazzini, known as I] Lasca, shows by his frequent references 
to certain technical matters in his prologues that the discus- 
sion of the technique of comedy was in the air. These drama- 
tists were not blind followers of Plautus and Terence, uncon- 
scious as to why they were doing certain things in their art. 
However, these references to technical procedure found in pro- 
logues must not be taken too seriously. The spirit of the pro- 
logue to comedy was generally one of mockery and of playful 
boasting of the excellencies of the playwright’s manner of com- 
posing comedy. In the prologue to the Sétrega, Grazzini says that 


ETALIAN COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 291 


Aristotle and Horace are out of date. His own age and cus- 
toms are different and comedies must be written in a different 
manner. ‘There are no more slaves or adopted children; ruf- 
fians do not sell girls, soldiers do not seize young children any 
more and bring them up as their own. 

In the prologue to Gelosia he asserts that the situation is new, 
that as soon as the audience hears in a prologue that in a cap- 
ture of a city children have been lost, the public would like to 
get away. Hence in neither of these plays will there be recog- 
nition scenes or will long-lost children be found, because the 
public is tired of such tricks. Also he promises that in the 
Sirega there will be no long, tiresome monologues. In this re- 
spect, he keeps his word in regard to all his plays. Although the 
recognition scene is not employed as a dénouement for certain of 
his plays, the ending of the Parentadi is brought about by an 
anagnorisis. Many a century will pass before this procedure 
will be discarded by playwrights who build up a complicated 
situation and wish to have the complications smoothed out in 
a manner satisfactory both to people on the stage and in the 
audience. The device was too convenient either to be convinc- 
ing to the spectators or to be discarded by the playwrights. 

Grazzini, with all his boasts of disregarding the ancients, re- 
mained a neo-classicist in playwriting. He was a more faith- 
ful imitator of Plautus than was Machiavelli. He used all the 
devices of Latin comedy at one time or another. Just as the 
example of Aretino did not suffice to cause Italian playwrights 
to discard the type of plot of Latin comedy, so Grazzini’s at- 
tempt at novelty, which was not very serious, did not change 
greatly the framework of Italian comedy. 

In order to break the classical mould and to allow comedy of 
this type to develop into romantic comedy, the point of attack 
must be pushed back and the events leading up to the situation 
with which most Latin and Italian comedies begin must be 
represented on the stage. Then the recognition scene can play 
its part in the dénouement; but Grazzini could not have changed 


292 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the spirit or technique of classical drama even had he removed 
every recognition scene ever devised. 

Together with this regular comedy, flourished the commedia 
dell’ arte or improvised comedy. During the sixteenth century, 
troupes of Italian actors were formed who travelled far and 
wide in Italy, Spain, Germany and France, giving performances 
of Italian drama and especially commedia dell arte. This form 
of drama was an outgrowth of the humble improvisations given in 
the public square by charlatans, mountebanks and acrobats of 
different kinds. By 1550 it reached a high stage of develop- 
ment. 

Each troupe contained certain stock actors who played roles 
such as the lovers, the crotchety old men, the braggart captains, 
the doctor, the pedant, and most important of all, the Zanni, 
or acrobatic clowns. Each member of the troupe, as a rule, 
used the same name in every comedy—a practice which was 
to extend down through the eighteenth century in certain French 
plays. Best known to English speaking peoples are such roles 
as Columbine, Pantaloon, Doctor Gratiano, Captain Spavento or 
Fracasse, Harlequin, Polichinelle, the tricky clowns, etc. A 
distinctive part of the costume of the burlesque characters was 
the mask. The young heroines, however, appeared unmasked. 

The scenarios of their comedies were written out in great 
detail, but each character improvised the dialogue to suit the 
action. By the latter part of the sixteenth century, they were 
aided in this improvisation by printed collections of speeches 
suited to each rdle, such as F. Andreini’s Le Bravure del Capi- 
tano Spavenio, published in 1515. Isabella Andreini, a lady of 
great culture and a member of an academy, shows in her Letters 
a careful study of the language, tone and Petrarchistic conceits 
suited to the réle of prima donna, which she filled so brilliantly 
in the famous troupe of comedians known as the Gelosi. This 
improvisation of clever dialogue was a result of long practice 
and careful study. 

The wide repertory of these troupes included tragedy, pas- 
toral, comedy, ballet and the farce. The improvised scenarios 


. THE PASTORAL 293 


which have been preserved—the earliest one dating back only 
to 1568—show a strong influence of the literary drama. There 
is no great difference in technique between the two forms ex- 
cept that the commedia dell’ arte does not hold to the rule of 
five acts. Yet these troupes were a great influence in spreading 
Italian drama throughout Spain and France. Also, the repertory 
helped to keep alive the short farce in which, not the plot, but 
a comic situation bordering on a comedy of contemporary man- 
ners furnishes the main interest of the play. This influence 
of the farce will become important with the advent of Moliére 
in France. 

Another influence which came from Italy to the later drame 
of other European countries was that of the pastoral play. This 
form of theatrical art is an outgrowth of the eclogue in a dia- 
logue form, which came to be recited before a courtly audience. 
Poliziano had put shepherds in his Orfeo even in the latter part 
of the fifteenth century; and Niccolo da Corregio had produced 
in 1487 his Cefalo, in which there is a pastoral setting with shep- 
herds and nymphs and choruses of satyrs and fauns. Neither 
one of these plays, in spite of the settings, can be really con- 
sidered the ultimate source of a form of drama of which the 
first real example was not produced until three-quarters of a 
century later when Beccari in 1554 wrote his Sagrifizio. 

Tasso’s Aminta (1572), Guarini’s Pastor Fido (1590) and 
Bonarelli’s Filli di Sciro (1607) are plays that mark the apogee 
of Italian pastoral drama and contain elements of dramatic 
art in new combinations which differentiate somewhat the pas- 
toral form from contemporary tragedy and comedy. 

Aminta was inspired by Argenti’s Sfortunato (1567). The 
model is not dramatic. It lacks action, and the scenes are 
elegiac and lyric discussions of love. Also Aminta, though 
charming as pastoral poetry, has little to commend it dra- 
matically. In the early dramatic eclogue, recited in dialogue 
on the stage, different subjects were discussed by two inter- 
locutors, one of which was a good counsellor, as in Senecan 
drama. The influence of this scene is manifest in Aminta. In 


204 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the first act, Dafne tries to persuade Sylvia to turn her thoughts 
from the delights of the chase to the joys of love, but Sylvia 
is obdurate. Aminta, in love with Sylvia, tells his confidant, 
Tirsi, how his love was awakened and bewails the cruelty of 
the object of his desires. Act II. A satyr, also in love with 
Sylvia, announces in a monologue his intention of lying in wait 
for the maid. Dafne bids Tirsi send Aminta to a pool where 
Sylvia will bathe. Tirsi informs Aminta that Sylvia awaits him ; 
but Aminta is skeptical and undecided. Act III. Tirsi tells the 
chorus how Sylvia was attacked by the satyr; but, although 
saved by the timely arrival of Aminta, she fled from her pro- 
tector. Nerina describes to Aminta the supposed death of 
Sylvia, overcome by a wolf; and she places Sylvia’s veil, which 
was dropped in her flight, in her lover’s hands. Aminta is now 
convinced that suicide is the only remedy for his unhappiness. 
Act IV. Sylvia recounts to Dafne how she escaped by strata- 
gem from the wolf. Dafne informs her that Aminta has prob- 
ably taken his own life and Sylvia repents her cruelty. Ergasto 
tells her that Aminta threw himself from a precipice. Sylvia 
laments his death. In the single scene of the last act, Elpino 
tells the chorus that Aminta was saved from death, his fall 
being broken by branches, and that the lovers are united. 

This simple action is carried on by means of recitals of events 
given by secondary characters or with one principal character 
on the stage at a time. The hero and heroine never meet be- 
fore our eyes. Neither Italian comedy nor tragedy would in- 
fluence the pastoral dramatist to have the principals meet, and 
in the dramatic eclogue the nymph rarely appeared. The play 
is merely a pastoral story told in dialogue. Its importance to 
dramatic art lies in the fact that it places in the theatre a sim- 
ple, serious love story, which is neither gross nor horrible as in 
Italy tragedy, nor vulgar and immoral as in Italian comedy. The 
charm of the play arises from the treatment of this kind of 
love in smoothly flowing lyricism. It is opera without an or- 
chestral accompaniment. 

This form of drama, however, lost much of its charm and all 


THE PASTORAL 295 


of its simplicity in the development it received under the hand 
of Guarini in his Pastor Fido. He wished to outdo his rival 
Tasso in every respect. Aminta is pure pastoral drama and 
owes comparatively little to either tragedy or comedy. Pastor 
Fido is proudly described by Guarini as a tragi-comedy-pas- 
toral, and this title is correct. The play is a combination of 
elements drawn from these three kinds of drama, with a ballet 
in the game of blind man’s buff and at times a musical accom- 
paniment in addition. 

The plot is extremely complicated. When the play opens, 
Amarilli is betrothed to Silvio since, by the marriage of chil- 
dren of divine birth as an oracle has foretold, Arcadia can be 
released from its yearly sacrifice of a young woman. This situa- 
tion, the oracles, the sacrifice, the plague which has visited the 
land, the dream, are elements of tragedy. Silvio—drawn from 
Seneca’s character Hippolytus—loves only the chase. Amarilli 
loves a certain Mirtillo of unknown parentage; and although 
he returns her love, she feels she must be faithful to Silvio. 
Corisca, a mature and sophisticated nymph from the city, loves 
Mirtillo. She, in turn, is loved by Coridone and by the usual 
satyr. Silvio is loved by Dorinda. Each one of these episodes 
needs a separate exposition. It is given either in a monologue 
or in a discussion between a lover and a confidant, which serves 
as a dialogue on love, its pain and joys. These several love af- 
fairs with their cross purposes are a development of similar situa- 
tions in Italian comedy. A kind of merry-go-round of affections 
is thus produced, which becomes characteristic of pastoral drama 
and passes into French classical tragedy and comedy. 

The love motives work at cross purposes until finally, in a 
scene worthy of farce comedy, Amarilli is sent by Corisca into 
a cave where she expects to find Silvio, faithless to her, enjoy- 
ing the charms of Lisetta. Mirtillo follows her expecting to find 
proof of Amarilli’s infidelity, for the scheming Corisca has 
planned to entice Coridone, her lover, to the cave and have him 
found with Silvio. But before this can happen, the satyr closes 


296 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the mouth of the cave with a rock, thinking to trap Corisca. 
There is also the usual scene of the satyr discomfited by the 
nymph, in this case Corisca. This scene is on a plane of very 
low comedy, for Guarini does not hesitate to introduce the vul- 
garity of Italian comedy, although he asserts that he employs 
words of double meaning in order to preserve the decorum of 
tragedy. : 

The discovery of Mirtillo and Amarilli in the cave leads to 
scenes and situations imitated from tragedy. The lovers are 
condemned to death; and Montano, the high priest, is charged 
with the sacrifice of Mirtillo, who is his unknown son. Here 
is one of the Aristotelian situations of tragedy. But a dénoue- 
ment of comedy is introduced; and it is discovered that Mirtillo 
is the long-lost child of Montano. Guarini, however, is not 
satisfied with ending his play thus; and even after this recog- 
nition, Montano still believes he must sacrifice Mirtillo. Turn- 
ing back to tragedy, Guarini introduces Tirenio, a blind sooth- 
sayer—the Tiresias of classical tragedy—who easily explains 
that since Mirtillo is the son of Montano and was first called 
Silvio, he is just as suitable a match for Amarilli as is Silvio. 
In the meantime, Silvio has fallen in love with Dorinda in true 
pastoral manner, by wounding her when she is disguised as a 
wolf; and his heart melts when he fears he has killed her. Most 
of this dénouement, or rather these dénouements, are messen- 
gered in true tragic style. 

This complicated combination of tragedy, comedy, pastoral, 
ballet, and opera, displaced the simpler Aminta as a model; 
and future writers of pastorals turned to Pastor Fido as their 
source of inspiration. Four expositions and three dénouements 
are necessary to unravel the network of this too complicated 
plot. 

It can scarcely be said that dramatic art gained much by the 
production of a form which could draw from both tragedy and 
comedy for its technique. Perhaps the sole advantage was that 
in the pastoral the main love motive was neither horrible nor 
vulgar, although the minor love motive was often indecent, be- 


* : 


THE PASTORAL 297 


cause of the realistic treatment of the sensual passion of the 
satyr. 

In structure, the outstanding feature of pastorals under the 
influence of Guarini is this merry-go-round of the love motive, 
complicated in every conceivable way by changed names, dis- 
guises, and characters of unknown identity. Thus in Mirtilla, 
by Isabella Andreini, Tirso loves Ardelia who, like Narcissus, 
loves herself. In Bonarelli’s Fill: di Sciro, Filli, known as Clori, 
loves Tirso, known as Nino, who loves Celia. She, in turn, is 
loved by Aminta, who will be recognized as the brother of Filli, 
while Celia will be found to be the sister of Tirso. A further 
complication, which could only arise in the curious handling 
of the love motive in pastoral drama, is introduced by having 
Celia equally in love with Aminta and Nino. Thus the outstand- 
ing feature of the plot of the pastoral is the love motive com- 
plicated in as many ways as can be devised by the playwright. 
The source of this motive is found in the complicated situations 
and in the concealed identity of Italian comedy. The pastoral 
simply developed the situation. 

The importance of the pastoral in the development of dramatic 
technique will be manifest at a later period, when the Italian 
pastoral has been imitated in France in the first part of the sev- 
enteenth century. During the years 1620-1630, when both 
classical tragedy and comedy almost disappeared from the 
French stage, the pastoral, retaining elements of both tragedy 
and comedy, actually opened the way for the future develop- 
ment of the very forms of drama it had temporarily displaced. 
Corneille and other authors of comedy were to learn from the 
pastoral how to put into comedy themes of love which can 
be enjoyed without a blush. Voltaire said that Racine’s Bérénice 
was nothing but a pastoral. The statement is exaggerated truth. 
In England, the pastoral brought lyricism and charming love 
stories into the plays of Lyly, who in turn handed these elements 
on to Shakespeare. 


CHAPTER XI 


FRENCH COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE AND 
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 


HE names and the works of the Latin comic playwrights 

were well known to the literary men of the French Renais- 
sance; but as was the case in other forms of art, the French 
come into contact with classical comedy through the Italians. 
Even Grévin, who admired Plautus particularly, does not show 
in his plays the direct influence of Latin comedy. 

The Frenchman interested in the theatre may have had an 
opportunity as early as 1520 to see Italian plays given by a 
troupe of comedians coming from the Peninsula; but the reper- 
tory even of an Italian company of that early date could scarcely 
have been very classical. Whatever form of dramatic enter- 
tainment these comedians offered, their journey was without 
lasting effect. In 1543, however, Charles Estienne translated 
Gl’Ingannati, written in 1531 by the Intronati, members of the 
Sienese Academy. The popularity of Ariosto’s Suppositi, which 
was to exert a strong influence on later French comedy, was 
apparent even at this time through the translation or close imi- 
tation of the play by Jacques Bourgeois in 1545 and by Mesmes 
in 1552. In 1548, a troupe of Italian players produced Bib- 
biena’s Calandria before Henri II and his court at Lyon. 
Firenzuola’s Lucidi and Alamanni’s Flora were played in 1555 
at the court of Henri III in Paris. Indeed, the latter play was 
written by Alamanni in Paris. 

In 1548 the Brotherhood of the Passion occupied the theatre 
called the Hotel de Bourgogne, having been forced to leave the 
Hotel de Flandres where they had been playing. On the seven- 
teenth of November, Parliament decreed that they could no longer 
give plays on sacred themes. This decree was a blow to medieval 

208 


FRENCH COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 299 


drama since it made a great part of the repertory of these actors 
illegal. Although the Brotherhood continued to produce this for- 
bidden part of their repertory in defiance of the law throughout 
the latter half of the century and although they could still rep- 
resent lawfully “profane mysteries’ and farces, this law was 
favorable to the introduction of a new form of drama in France. 
The decree must have been the result of discussion of the ques- 
tion as to what kind of drama was fitted for public representa- 
tion. Critics may talk incessantly without noticeable effect; 
but when a part of the public begins to discuss drama, dramatic 
art begins to change in one way or another. On the other hand, 
this law decreed that no other troupe could play in Paris or the 
suburbs except under the name and for the profit of the Brother- 
hood of the Passion. This clause almost nullified the effect of 
banning sacred plays, for it left a company of players with a 
medieval repertory in sole control of the only theatre in Paris. 
Throughout the rest of the century plays imitated from clas- 
sical models were probably never offered to the Brotherhood ; 
and certainly no such plays were accepted. Medieval drama 
held the public theatre. The neo-classical drama found an oc- 
casional representation at colleges or at court. 

The French dramatists of the Renaissance were confronted 
with a serious problem. They could scoff, as they did, at the 
mysteries and farces; but they could not dislodge them from 
the stage on which drama of medieval technique was presented. 
To win the day quickly or at all, they would have had to take 
possession of the theatre. But they were content with the 
printed page. Indeed, their comedies were often printed posthu- 
mously by a pious friend; or were published apologetically by 
the author as works composed lightly and as having lain for a 
long time forgotten “in an old batch of papers.” It is doubtful 
that these authors ever realized how to introduce this new form of 
drama, or that, in spite of their Philistine attitude, they strongly 
desired to drive the old plays off the stage. Whatever was the 
case, the influence of Italian drama was slow in making itself 
felt in the theatre, no matter how strong it was in books; and 


300 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


this influence was noticeably exerted only after it had been 
combined with the influence of medieval drama by real men of 
the theatre in the seventeenth century. At most, the men of the 
Renaissance slowly and painfully prepared a public which would 
be ready in the next century to listen to a higher type of play 
than that offered by the Brotherhood of the Passion. 

Charles Estienne, in the preface to the Comédie du Sacrifice 
(1543), expressed the attitude of the classicists in regard to 
the relative merits of medieval and ancient comedy. French 
farce, he said, keeps only one act of New Comedy. Many come- 
dies consist of ridiculous words and badinage without rhyme or 
reason, without any plot or conclusion. The reforms which he 
implied or advocated consisted in lengthening the plays to five 
acts; dividing them into scenes; having characters leave the 
stage whenever their presence is not necessary; the introduction 
of -a plot with an ending; the use of prose for dialogue in imita- 
tion of the Italians. 

The first original French comedy produced as a result of the 
classical movement was Eugéne (1552) by Jodelle. In his pro- 
logue he stated his purpose and ideas. Comedy is looked down 
upon, he said. Many people prefer tragedy; but the author 
wishes to please the lower populace and re-introduce comedy, 
which for so long has not been seen upon a stage. Although the 
plot owes nothing to an old Menander and the style is his own, 
the author owes nothing to the rubbish of the morality plays. 
He is going to follow an old trail in order that the French may 
dare to follow it. He will, however, break the law of comedy 
and make his characters graver than they would have been had 
he followed Latin comedy step by step. The characters are 
above the most vulgar populace. They are such people as we 
see among us. (This is a revolt at the outset against the idea 
that comedy must present the dregs of society as it so often did 
in Italy.) The setting is not so rich as it might be and there 
is no music between the acts. He will not tell the plot in the 
prologue. The audience will understand everything as soon as 
it hears the first scene. 


FRENCH COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 301 


The priest, Eugéne and Jean, his chaplain, give the details 
of the situation. Eugéne is in love with Alix and has married 
her to the stupid Guillaume; Jean is promised a benefice if he 
keeps the husband in ignorance of the amour of his wife and if 
he prevents Alix from turning her attention to some other gal- 
lant. The situation is still more complicated, as Jean explains 
in an ensuing monologue. Captain Florimond, who is in love 
with Eugeéne’s sister Héléne and who was worn out by the lady’s 
pitiless virtue, had turned his attention with success to Alix 
before his departure for the war. It was then that Eugéne mar- 
ried Alix to the convenient Guillaume. In the next scene 
Guillaume extols his wife’s virtue and chastity, while Alix throws 
in humorous asides. We learn that a certain creditor is demand- 
ing payment and the act closes with the arrival of Jean. 

Act II. Florimond, back from the war, seeks Alix; and, after 
an episodic monologue and dialogue with his servant Arnauld, 
he sends the latter in search of his mistress. Héléne has seen 
Florimond pass by; and, after a monologue in which she repeats 
what is already known, she informs her brother Eugéne of the 
relations between Florimond and Alix. The abbé is furious. 

Act III. Arnauld reports the whole situation to Florimond. 
He has found Jean dining with Guillaume and Alix. They 
threaten to punish all the culprits. Jean tells his version of the 
incident in a monologue and enlarges upon the details of the 
appearance of Arnauld in a scene with Eugéne and his sister. 
Florimond meets Alix, reproaches her, and orders his furniture 
removed from her house. 

Act IV. Although Guillaume was present in the last scene, 
his monologue proves he believes no evil of his wife. The 
creditor, having heard that Florimond intends to strip the house 
of the furniture, arrives on the scene threatening prison for 
Guillaume if he is not paid. He encounters Eugéne and 
Héléene who plead for Guillaume in vain. Arnauld offers his 
services to Florimond to kill Eugene. The act closes as Eugene 
laments over the whole affair to Jean, and asks Jean to withdraw 
while he thinks of what to do. 


302 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Act V. During the entr’acte Eugéne has decided, so he tells 
Jean, to persuade Héléne to accept Florimond’s love and thus 
all will be well. As for the creditor, Eugéne will give him a 
cure. Héléne accepts the proposal, as does the creditor. 
Guillaume is not only satisfied with the return of his furniture; 
but also, when Eugéne tells him he loves his wife and wishes 
to enjoy her favors without fear, the old fool blandly replies 
that he is not jealous. Florimond rejoices in the conquest of 
Héléne and the play closes with all the characters entering to 
enjoy a supper.. ays 

To insist categorically that the increase in plot material is 
wholly due to Italian influence would be unsafe. The farce had 
become more and more complicated and the despised farceurs had 
grown fairly adept in motivation and in developing action 
logically. Hugéne marks a step forward in these respects; but 
this evolution may well have received little impulse from clas- 
sical theory, for Eugéne is a farce in five acts, with more com- 
plication of plot than usual. The setting, however, is a street 
as in Italian comedy. | 

The situation, characters, tone, the lack of liaison of scenes 
which follow each other at the will of the author, the ending, 
the versification, are characteristic of the farce. There is no 
more unity of action or plot than would be expected from a play- 
wright who was acquainted with the more developed farces and 
who dared to develop this form still further. The situation is 
medieval for the reason that Alix is married. Latin comedy 
would have taken up the story before Eugéne had married her 
to Guillaume. Florimond would have been the long-lost rela- 
tion of someone of importance, and would have married Alix; 
whereas Héléne would have been married to someone else. Clas- 
sical comedy does not use adultery as a motive. Farce comedy 
does; and these characters are stock characters of the farce. 
Florimond has a touch of the braggart captain, but he is still 
the “gallant” of the farce. The amorous priest, the wife bold 
in her infidelity, the stupid and complacent husband, belong to 
medieval comedy. Héléne is not the maiden of classical com- 


FRENCH COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 303 


edy. Her virtue is temporary. She has no thought of marriage 
with Florimond, but she accepts him in the frank, jesting man- 
ner of the farce. The ending is cynically medieval. There is 
no concealed or mistaken identity or disguise to mitigate the 
crudeness of the situation or to offer a relatively moral solu- 
tion. In the manner of medieval drama of all kinds, the prin- 
cipal characters in the story carry on the action in the play. 
Most of the story is included within the limits of the play, 
although the situation is complicated enough to necessitate a 
rather more detailed exposition than is usual in the farce. 

The point of attack, although not late in the story, causes 
certain anterior scenes to be narrated. Yet this is due to the 
complex situation rather than to Italian influence. The scene 
in which Arnauld discovers Guillaume, Alix and Jean dining 
together would certainly have been played on the purely medie- 
val stage. It is a hilariously comic scene potentially; but it 
is reported, not enacted, in this play in which Italian influence 
is strong enough to introduce the street setting. From now on 
for many years, just such scenes will be lost to the comic stage 
in France. 

Yet this attempt to evolve true comedy from the indigenous 
farce went for almost naught. Jodelle’s emulators went to Ital- 
jan comedy for their inspiration and were content to copy or 
adapt what they found beyond the Alps, with the result that 
their plays never saw the real stage. 

One of the actors of the production of Eugéne was Grévin, 
who wrote the Trésoriére given at the Collége de Beauvais in 
1558. This play is modelled closely on Eugéne so far as situa- 
tion, characters and dénouement are concerned. The rdéle of the 
servant, however, was increased in importance; and less of the 
action takes place on the stage than in Jodelle’s play. The last 
act is almost entirely narrative in the manner of Italian com- 
edy. Also in dramatizing an actual event, Grévin followed the 
example of Grazzini and Machiavelli. 

In Grévin’s next play, the Ebahis (1 561), one has to search 
for elements of the farce. The stupid, complacent husband of 


304 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the farce has now become an old libertine of classical com- 
edy, who, believing that his wife has disappeared for ever, is in 
love with Madelon, daughter of his neighbor Gerard. The un- 
expected return of his wife and the recognition in true Latin 
style solve the problem instead of having a frankly immoral 
situation accepted by a stupid husband for a dénouement as in 
the farce. The action is slow in starting, for the rest of the act 
is taken up with a recital by the servant Anthoine of how the 
old man makes a fool of himself at home playing his amorous 
role. The whole recital would make excellent comedy, were it 
enacted as it would have been in a strictly medieval play; but 
action even of this kind was going off the stage under the in- 
fluence of this new way of constructing comedy. 

In the second act, it is learned that Madelon is loved by a 
young advocate whose affection she returns, and by Pantaloon, 
an Italian, whom she disdains. The plot then develops in the 
regular Italian way to an Italian climax and ending. Go-be- 
tweens and servants contrive to bring the advocate, disguised 
as the amorous Josse, to Madelon. Her father sees the lovers 
through the keyhole, believes that the advocate is Josse and . 
contents himself with joking his future son-in-law. A servant 
gives a new impulse to the action by accusing Pantaloon 
of having been the favored lover. The latter is captured but 
proves his innocence. In the meantime, a “Gentleman” has 
procured, through Dame Claude, a meeting with Agnes, the wife 
of Josse and former mistress of Pantaloon. When she appears 
on the scene the recognition and dénouement ensue. 

The meeting of the lovers by means of disguise with the vari- 
ous mistakes which follow is a situation which becomes canonical 
in French comedy. Following the example of the Italians, 
Grévin, with his scene in the street, prefers to narrate the epi- 
sode in all its details, instead of having it enacted up to a certain 
point in the manner of a similar scene in the old farce of the 
Hen-House. There is a refinement of indecency which is more 
revolting than the crude vulgarity of the farce. The action is 
necessarily behind the scenes. Secondary characters, such as 


FRENCH COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 305 


servants and go-betweens, hold the stage. The heroine appears 
rarely. The situation is more complicated than in the case of 
the farce, although there is not much more action in the play 
than in the highly developed farce and there are fewer events 
on the stage. 

Jean de la Taille composed in 1562 a comedy entitled Les 
Corrivaux which was published in 1573. His interest in Italian 
comedy is proved by his free translation, amounting at times to 
an adaptation of Ariosto’s Negromante, and by a statement in 
the prologue to his play in which he openly avows that he fol- 
lowed Plautus and Terence and the Italians. He was the first 
playwright in France to proclaim the imitation of Italian comedy 
as the basis of his art. He discarded the versification of the 
farce and used prose for his dialogue as the Italian authors had 
done. His cast of characters is larger than that of his prede- 
cessors and much longer than the list of personages in the 
farce. His play also contains many scenes and a complicated 
plot, after the manner of the comedies produced in the Peninsula, 
although it is not quite so complex as the plot of its source, 
Parabosco’s Viluppo (1547). Italian influence is now complete. 

There is a double plot with two heroes and two heroines. One 
of the heroines appears in the first act to give the exposition, 
while the other does not appear at all. The latter, Fleurdalys, 
is a girl sought by two rivals who are introduced simultaneously 
into her house by tricky servants. This scene, as usual, is mes- 
sengered. The plot is complicated by means of concealed iden- 
tity and long-lost children. One of the lovers turns out to be 
the brother of his inamorata. This love of a brother for a sister 
is a motive well known in Italian drama. In tragedy it is frankly 
incestuous, and it leads to the climax and dénouement. In 
comedy it titillates the somewhat degenerate emotions of the 
audience and leads to the dénouement. 

The only really interesting scene on the stage is the exposition 
in which the girl Restitue confesses to the nurse that her lover 
has deserted her and has become enamored of Fleurdalys; but 
there is no originality even in this kind of expository scene 


306 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


common to Italian comedy and best known to us in Ariosto’s 
Suppositi. It is soon found that this situation has but little to 
do with the ensuing action, which develops into the messengered 
scene already mentioned. The rest of the play, after this obliga- 
tory scene off the stage, consists of recognition scenes and be- 
trothals brought about unexpectedly. The French comic play- 
wrights have all the parts of the Italian comic machine at their 
disposal, but they cannot fit them together so that the wheels 
revolve without squeaking. The result is that Les Corrivaux and 
the plays which follow it are in many ways much poorer ex- 
amples of comedy than Eugéne, which possesses some of the 
vigor of the medieval farce. 

Belleau’s Reconnue, finished by an unknown author after the 
death of Belleau in 1577, shows only too well the increasing mis- 
conception of what is humorous on the stage in the minds of 
men who were not writing plays for production. Belleau had 
played in Jodelle’s Eugéne, but his comedy is more effective when 
read than played. Very little of the action is on the stage. 
Even the climax is behind the scenes. Frequent monologues, 
asides and digressions recall Senecan tragedy. The technique 
of contemporary tragedy was based on the art of oratory and 
of narration. These same forces which kept action behind the 
scenes in tragedy were at work in comedy. The very title, The 
Woman Recognized, shows the influence of classical comedy 
with its recognition scene; and a remote source of the play is 
found in Casina by Plautus. Unlike the farce, Belleau’s comedy 
is based upon a long series of antecedent events and the point 
of attack is late in the story. 

Classicists, like Grévin, begged “all lovers of good literature 
to aid in driving out the monstrous farce.” They gave the usual 
excuse for their lack of success: that the theatrical audience was 
ignorant. The answer to this accusation is that not one of the 
classical comedies of this period can compare favorably with 
Pathelin and other highly developed farces in fitness for presen- 
tation on a stage. The comedies written after 1560 were scarcely 
ever produced. The authors lacked the opportunity to see their 


a > a er a ioe 
eile : : 


FRENCH COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 307 


works and to learn by experience what is effective on the comic 
stage. Many of them felt that comedy was an inferior form of 
dramatic art. They apologized for writing it and for having it 
published. Naturally they failed to dislodge the farce from 
its stronghold. Even in the seventeenth century, when Corneille 
and Moliéere adapted classical comedy to the public stage, the 
farce influenced these masters of the art of playmaking, both 
directly and indirectly. 

Had it been possible to influence the real theatre at this time 
through plays built on the model of classical comedy, had the 
audience been prepared slowly for this new style of drama, 
Larivey might have become a real dramatist for the Hotel de 
Bourgogne. In 1579 he published six comedies adapted from 
the Italian, although he implied in his prologue that Latin 
comedy was his primary source. In 1611 he published three 
more plays of the same kind. He improved the Italian originals 
by systematic reduction in the number of characters. Thus in 
the Veuve he dropped five roles from the original Vedova by 
Buonaparte. Unfortunately he was too prone to cause feminine 
roles to disappear. French classical comedy was not to come 
into its own until an active part both in the story and on the 
stage was given to the heroine. Critics have alleged as a reason 
for this suppression the fact that feminine rdles were generally 
played by men; they forget that Larivey was writing these plays 
to be read and that this custom had no effect on feminine rdles 
in tragedy. 

Larivey also reduced long speeches and long scenes and even 
suppressed certain episodes, thus simplifying the action some- 
what, but at times causing gaps in the plot. He also adapted 
local allusions and customs to fit French ideas. Yet in spite of 
the characteristic French impulse towards simplification, the plays 
remain entirely Italian in technique; and they merely reproduce 
the usual classical plots, motives, scenes and characters. Larivey 
excelled his contemporaries in the art of comic dialogue. He 
had an instinct for comic effect and the incisive line. It is here 
that his originality lies. Unfortunately these plays were never 


308 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


given a public hearing. Larivey did not become a real dramatist. 

This lack of opportunity to produce plays of this type is felt 
to be all the more regrettable when one reads Les Contens, the 
masterpiece of French classical comedy of the Renaissance. This 
play, published in 1584 after the death of its author, Tournébe, 
has dramatic merit. The plot is distinctly Italian. Tournébe 
was more than a translator and adapter. He had a sense of the 
dramatic. 

The plot rests upon the well-known situation of two or three 
men in love with the same girl; but the opening scene is handled 
in a manner very different from that of most classical comedies. 
The exposition, instead of being presented in a conversation 
carried on between one of the lovers and his father or a servant, 
is effected by an explanatory dialogue between the heroine, 
Genevieve, and her mother. An added interest is thus gained 
in that the sympathetic character is brought on the stage and 
the persons most concerned with the action explain the situation. 

We learn from this dialogue that of her three lovers, Geneviéve 
favors Basile; while her mother and the father of Eustache have 
decided to marry her to Eustache. The third lover is a braggart 
captain. It is found that Basile has been able to gain an inter- 
view with Geneviéve the night before by appearing disguised as 
Eustache, with other maskers. Shakespeare would have put 
this scene on the stage as he did in Romeo and Juliet ; but the 
meeting takes place indoors; and since Tournébe has used the 
usual street-scene, he cannot include the scene within his play. 
The point of attack, therefore, comes later in the play than it 
should; but, since there is no long chain of antecedent events 
in this story, the point of attack is relatively early and is placed 
almost correctly. This is the only scene which ought to be 
enacted and is not on the stage. 

The complication of the plot and the ensuing action arise from 
the fact that Basile, disguised once more as Eustache, gains 
entrance to Geneviéve’s house again, and, when discovered by 
her mother, he is thought to be Eustache. Further complica- 
tions are introduced when Eustache, informed wrongly that 


FRENCH COMEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 309 


Genevieve has a physical infirmity, turns elsewhere for the gratifi- 
cation of his passion, and when the woman he is entertaining 
is dressed in his clothes and takes Basile’s place beside Genevieve. 
This totally Italian situation depending upon disguise and simi- 
larity of appearance leads to the usual quiproquo and mistakes 
of classical comedy. The dénouement, however, is not brought 
about by recognition. The whole situation really exists at the 
beginning of the play; and the ending is caused when Genevieve’s 
mother accepts Basile as a son-in-law. This is the logical ending ; 
and the logical ending of a comedy based on a situation which 
really exists is very rare. 

The servants occupy a secondary place in the action. No 
opportunity for humor is lost thereby; and the structure of this 
play proves that it is perfectly possible to make the principal 
and sympathetic characters in the story carry on much of the 
action on the stage and to increase greatly the interest in the 
plot, without sacrificing any of the comic effects arising from 
the tricky servant of classical comedy. 

Genevieve appears on the stage much more often than the 
usual heroine of classical comedy. She furnishes a part of the 
comic effect. She is more respectable than the usual contem- 
porary heroine. Although she receives her lover before they 
are legally married, the love of these two young people is 
relatively honorable when compared with the love in the farce 
and Italian comedy. Tournébe stages a sympathetic, decent 
love scene between the hero and heroine, which raises the tone 
of the play and the interest in the pair far above the plane of 
the usual comedy based upon an immoral situation. This is 
the first example of the scene of gallant love which forms one 
of the foundations of later comedy. 

Where had Tournébe learned this art? He had seen Jodelle’s 
Eugéne acted. He had seen, therefore, a good deal of action on 
the stage. He did not imitate Italian comedy slavishly. Some- 
where he had learned that much of the classical technique in 
comedy was faulty. He must have learned this from seeing 
medieval drama acted. 


310 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The influence of the farce increased. In 1589, Perrin asserted 
in his prologue to his Escholliers that he had not gone to foreign 
sources because he preferred the Gallic farce. He was more 
indebted to foreign comedy than he wished to admit, for the 
ultimate source of his play is Ariosto’s Suppositi. Yet the fact 
that he made this statement is evidence that it was no longer 
necessary to despise the farce in order to be considered a gentle- 
man and a playwright. Perrin made good his boast by adopting 
the versification of the farce, its cynical tone, and a simpler 
plot than is usual in Italian comedy. 

Godard’s Desguisez published in 1594, is also derived from the 
Suppositi ; but again the plot is simplified and the characters are 
reduced in number. The plot deals with a lover who disguises 
himself as a servant in order to be near the woman he loves 
and to offer her honorable marriage. He declares his love in a 
scene on the stage. The heroine at first refuses; but later her 
heart is won. The hero and heroine were beginning to play 
opposite each other in French comedy more and more. Also, this 
play was given at least one performance. 

Bonet’s comedy La Tasse (1595) shows more plainly the influ- 
ence of the acted drama and especially of the farce on classical 
comedy. In this play we first see a doctor and his valet who are 
going to the silversmith’s to get a cup. Their plans are over- 
heard by two sharpers or rather soldiers of fortune. The valet 
brings the cup to the doctor’s wife. One of the swindlers brings 
two partridges, and assures the woman that they are a present 
from her husband and that the doctor wants the cup. She gives 
it to him. The doctor arrives and, when he learns what has 
happened, beats his wife, who refuses to beg his pardon for her 
stupidity. She faints. The servant threatens to yell “bloody 
murder.” The doctor sets forth to seek the cup and one of 
the robbers mocks him. In the third act, the robber explains 
to the wife that one of the doctor’s friends has played the trick, 
that the doctor now knows the truth and wants the birds brought 
to him so that he and his friend can eat them together. The 
enraged wife gives them up. The two robbers are ready to eat 


FRENCH CLASSICAL COMEDY 311 


their stolen feast, when a third crook steals it. Each accuses 
the other. The wife now decides to avenge herself by being 
unfaithful to her husband, and sends for a “Monsieur Laure.” 
The valet perceives what is happening and informs the doctor, 
who beholds the vengeance through the keyhole in regulation Ital- 
ian fashion. He calls witnesses; but the maid, again in Italian 
fashion, changes clothes with Laure and she is discovered by 
the doctor. With the cynicism of the farce, Laure and the other 
witness decide to share the woman’s favors in the future. She 
proves her “innocence” to her husband. Laure goes to seek the 
cup. He finds the robbers, who pass the cup back and forth to 
each other as they are searched, in a scene either inspired by 
the farce or the commedia dell’ arte, at least from a popular 
acted form of drama, for such scenes are only effective when 
acted. Finally, Laure gets possession of the cup; and one of 
the robbers is recognized as the brother of the doctor, the other 
as the brother of his wife. This recognition, however, does not 
alter the typical farcical dénouement of the play. 

Although certain incidents and tricks are borrowed from the 
Italian form, the greater part of the play is built along the 
lines of the farce. There is no late point of attack. The action 
develops from the situation as it exists at the rise of the curtain. 
There is concealed identity and a recognition, but these motives 
have little to do with the plot. The action is on the stage. 
Indeed, the setting may well have been of the medieval type and 
have shown the interior as well as the exterior of the house. 

The Corrivaux (1612), by Pierre Troterel, also seems to de- 
mand a simultaneous setting. The author places his characters 
on the stage at will. The liaison of scenes is imperfect and the 
jerkiness of the action is characteristic of the medieval drama. 
The playwright was little concerned with explanations as to how 
the characters happen to appear. He was content to have them 
keep the action before the eyes of the audience. As a result, the 
psychology—if we may apply such a term to the minds of these 
characters—is as jerky as the action, although neither psychology 
nor action is halting. 


312 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


In this play, the influence of Italian comedy can be found © 
once more in the usual disguise motive; but the play is a farce 
with all the characteristic crude realism, obscenity, and cynicism. 
The technique is that of the farce. The point of attack is at 
the beginning of the story. The action develops on the stage 
and leaves little except utter indecency behind the scenes. The 
dénouement is the regular ending of the farce brought about by 
cynical disregard of truth and decency. Although such an ending 
can be found in the Italian Mandragola and in the novella, 
French comedy of the Renaissance did not have to learn this 
method of solving a problem from Italy. It was the ending 
through recognition and discovery that the French playwright 
had to learn from the land of Plautus and Terence. 

It is commonly held that the French playwrights of the Renais- 
sance learned to handle complex plots by imitating Italian 
comedy. The facts which we have attempted to establish do 
not entirely support that view. As time went on, the writers of 
French comedy, always prone to simplify Italian comedy, reduced 
this complexity more and more, until the double plot, the dis- 
guises, the long chain of antecedent events, the mistaken identity, 
concealed relationships, the round robin of three or four char- 
acters in love, the recognition and discoveries, all the mechanical 
devices for complicating plots, almost entirely disappeared or 
were used sparingly. These devices were to return in later French 
comedy; but Corneille, Rotrou and Moliére did not learn these 
tricks from erudite imitators of the Italian comedy of Renais- 
sance. Comedy was not in favor at the beginning of the French 
Renaissance, nor did it succeed in winning favor. Les Contens, 
alone, seems to have been held worthy of esteem. In fact, the 
authors of these plays treated them as step-children. 

Not only were classical comedies denied representation on the 
popular stage up to 1600, but also Hardy, author of hundreds of 
other plays, probably wrote no comedies. ‘The farce retained 
real vigor and finally forced its technique upon the erudite 
when they wrote humorous plays even based upon an Italian 
situation. Another reason for the failure of this transplanted 


Ramee on. ek: = a 


FRENCH CLASSICAL COMEDY 313 


comedy to impress its mould upon French acted drama was 
that humor found its outlet on the French stage not only in 
the farce, but in tragi-comedy and in the pastoral. 

A comparison of Les Contens, Les Escholliers, Les Desguisez, 
and Les Corrivaux with Ariosto’s Suppositi shows the difference 
between Italian classical comedy and French classical comedy 
that has been influenced by the farce. These French comedies 
use the motive of disguise; but, whereas in the Suppositi the 
disguise has taken place before the beginning of the play, in 
these comedies the point of attack is placed so as to include the 
disguise within the play. This is distinctively a medieval pro- 
cedure, differing from the classical practice of placing the point 
of attack so close to the dénouement that many events and 
much of the situation have to be narrated. As a result of this 
procedure, much more of the action is on the stage and the plot 
develops more within the limits of the play. Also, the heroine 
and hero appear more frequently. Yet the plot was simplified 
by the French writers. Since the interest was sustained by 
having the action develop on the stage through the principal 
characters, it was not necessary to build up many complications 
brought about by antecedent events, to be talked about by 
secondary characters, as is generally the case in Italian comedy. 

Mairet’s Galanteries du Duc d’Ossone is the direct continua- 
tion of this method of building plays; and it carries the de- 
velopment one step farther in that the scene in which the lover 
gains admittance to his lady’s room is on the stage in view of 
the audience, whereas in Les Corrivaux the audience saw only 
the disguised servant enter the house. In order to present this 
scene, Mairet, who was one of the advocates of the three uni- 
ties, had to disregard the unities of place and of time. He 
wrote his play for a stage which permitted a system of simulta- 
neous decoration. The street-scene of classical comedy was 
renounced. Medieval technique had triumphed enough to make 
it possible for the writer of comedy to put every scene on the 
stage. Of course, the single set was to return later in the French 


314 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


theatre; but by that time playwrights had learned how to avoid 
most of the infelicities caused by the unchanging set. 

In the Galanteries du Duc d’Ossone at the rise of the curtain, 
Paulin, the aged husband of Emilie, has attempted to slay her 
lover, Camille. This is the sole important antecedent event. 
Paulin informs the Duke and asks for protection. The ensuing 
action arises from the fact that the Duke, although up to this 
time he has not been in love with Emilie, conceives the idea of 
sending Paulin away in order to have free access to his wife. 
The Duke enters the room of Emilie by means of a rope ladder. 
He finds her about to visit her wounded lover, Camille; and she 
begs the Duke, as a favor, to remain with the old woman who 
watches over her. The Duke gallantly consents and is rewarded 
by finding that the “old woman” is the young and attractive 
Flavie, who receives him with open arms. When Emilie re- 
turns, the play would seem to be over; but at the beginning of 
the fourth act, Camille solicits Flavie’s love through his servant. 
Flavie accepts the proposal and grants a rendezvous. Emilie, 
however, grants a similar rendezvous to the Duke. In the dark- 
ness Flavie mistakes the Duke for Camille; but after a scene 
of recrimination and final reconciliation of the quartet of lovers, 
the husband of Emilie arrives. The Duke pretends that Camille 
is in command of a guard coming to arrest Paulin; and the 
duped husband flees, leaving the four lovers in possession of the 
field of battle. 

On this situation, taken from an Italian novella, Mairet con- 
structed a comedy by employing a technique by no means 
Italian. The servants do little until the fourth act. The prin- 
cipal characters are kept on the stage; and the action is in view 
of the audience, whenever it is within bounds of decency as 
interpreted by the free standards of the period. The Duke has 
borrowed a confidant from tragi-comedy who tries to dissuade 
his friend from carrying out his plan in a scene which is common 
in tragedy. The action arises from a simple situation and de- 
velops its complexity during the play. The two episodes in the 
action are not closely bound together; but there is plenty of 


FRENCH CLASSICAL COMEDY 315 


action, and enough events take place on the stage to sustain the 
interest. The cynical ending is the regular ending of medieval 
French comedy. Finally, the people of this play are of high 
rank. Thus the materials are at hand for a comedy which will 
be interesting, if acted, and which will present characters of 
social rank higher than the usual people of either Renaissance 
or medieval comedy. 

The problem now facing the comic playwright was how to 
make “honest people laugh.” The indecency had to disappear. 
Corneille practically solved the problem in his Mélite, mainly 
through the influence of pastoral drama. 

The influence of the pastoral on French dramatic technique 
was strongest during the years 1620-1630. During the latter 
half of the sixteenth century there were representations of pas- 
torals at the courts, in the colleges and in the provinces. The 
real impulse towards the composition of pastoral plays came first 
with the translations of Tasso’s Aminta (1584), Guarini’s Pastor 
Fido (1595), Andreini’s Mirtilla (1602), and Bracciolini’s Penti- 
mento Amoroso (1603). 

By the beginning of the seventeenth century the French play- 
wrights were acquainted with the technical elements found in 
the Italian pastoral, or as Guarini called his play, the tragi- 
comedy-pastoral. In the pastoral there is the complicated situa- 
tion of crossed love motives, yet with very little action. The 
situation remains almost stationary until the dénouement solves 
the problems, generally by a recognition scene. The lyricism, 
the songs of unrequited love constituted the mainspring of the 
interest. As in tragedy, the monologue and the narrative abound; 
the confidant plays an important role; the plot is sometimes com- 
posed of parallel episodes, each of which could be played sepa- 
rately. It is thus that Montchrétien constructed his Bergerie 
with the result that the author himself forgot to complete one 
of the many love episodes. The interest arose, not from the 
situation as a whole, but from separate scenes consisting of lyric 
dialogues and monologues. The writer of pastorals did not yet 
attempt to introduce new situations and effects. He simply built 


316 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


up a complex framework by combining motives and situations 
which he inherited from the Italian pastoral. Montchrétien’s play 
is a mosaic of traditional elements borrowed from Italian plays 
directly or indirectly. As Marsan says: “Nothing is lacking: 
chaste maidens, exalted lovers, passionate or cold shepherds, the 
confidants, the despairing father, the old woman expert in com- 
posing love philters, the satyr, the echo, the oracle, the inter- 
rupted sacrifice, the recognitions, bursts of anger, remorse, crimes, 
resurrections.” All this we find, but no dramatic interest. 

Out of these interests hurled together pell-mell to form a back- 
ground for lyric effusions of tenderness, Hardy constructed plays 
with a dramatic action helping to arouse and sustain interest. 
Whether his situation is simple as in Corine and in Alcée, or 
complicated with a pastoral merry-go-round of love motives as 
in his Alphée, he was able to avoid the confusion and ineptitude 
of such plays as Montchrétien’s Bergerie. The material is the 
same, but it is handled by a dramatist writing for an audience. 
His plots are simple, with the exception of the plot of Alphée 
in which he has introduced the merry-go-round of love; but 
even in this play the main episode is given enough importance 
so that the whole situation is made plain. 

He begins usually in the middle of the action. Generally, 
principal characters open the play. The exposition is unob- 
trusive. From their conversation we learn incidentally what 
obstacles confront the lovers. The confidant is rarely employed. 
The principal characters carry on the action before our eyes. 
Scenes which are narrated in older pastorals, especially in 
Aminta and Pastor Fido, are put on the stage by Hardy. Thus 
the scene in which the satyr surprises the shepherdess at the 
bath, narrated in Aminta, is enacted in Corine. The rdéle of 
the messenger, which is so important in earlier pastorals, does 
not exist in Hardy’s extant plays of this class. | 

He shows the same care in leading up to his dénouements that 
he employs in his tragi-comedies. Thus in Alcée, the recognition 
of the son by his father which ends the play, is prepared by 
showing the father setting forth from his home in search of his 


FRENCH CLASSICAL COMEDY 317 


child, and the arrival of the father in the land of the shepherds. 
The story is told clearly, and the correct scenes are chosen for 
representation. Emphasis is placed upon those in which the 
principal characters are concerned. There are enough events to 
give the play movement, and each act advances the plot. 

These plays are a combination of heroic, marvellous, comic and 
melodramatic elements. The importance of Hardy’s pastoral lies 
in the fact that it is a play founded upon a decent love story, 
in which the principal characters, not servants or confidants, 
carry on the action on the stage. It took the place which classical 
comedy might have occupied in the theatre during these years, 
because, in spite of its setting and its marvellous effects, the 
pastoral, as written by Hardy, is a comedy dealing with situations 
of everyday life. 

Hardy opens his Triomphe d’Amour with a scene between 
three principal characters. Atys, a rich shepherd, and Cephée, 
a poor shepherd, dispute the question as to which one is loved 
by Clitie, daughter of Phedime. She does not wish to answer 
the question, but she promises to award her love to the one who 
can run the faster. As they withdraw to the starting point, 
she runs away, informing the audience that Cephée has known 
her inclination for him for a long time. When the race is run, 
the shepherds find their referee has flown. Clitie assures the 
shepherdess, A“gine, who loves Atys, that she will not accept the 
love of Atys. Phzdime grants the hand of his daughter to Atys; 
but the maiden refuses to accept him as a husband. 

Act II. A satyr laments his love for Clitie, and then overhears 
Clitie tell Mélice to ask Cephée to abduct her, in order to prevent 
her marriage to Atys. The satyr decides to upset this plan by 
abducting Clitie himself. Atys throws Cephée into amorous 
consternation by announcing his approaching marriage with 
Clitie; but Meélice reassures the lover by giving him Clitie’s 
message. The satyr gets a second satyr to aid him in his plan 
of abducting Clitie. 

Act III. Cephée and his friend, Pisandre, set out to abduct 
the willing Clitie. The satyrs arrive first. They are surprised 


318 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


by Cephée and Pisandre, who capture the first satyr; but the 
second satyr escapes, taking Clitie with him. ®gine declares 
her love for Atys, who repulses her. Cephée and Pisandre force 
the first satyr to show them where the second satyr has taken 
Clitie. He brings them to a cave, but they do not find her 
there. They beat the satyr and decide to have recourse to a 
sorceress in order to find out where Clitie is held prisoner. 

Act IV. In a scene of incantation, the sorceress gives the 
answer that although the first satyr does not know where Clitie 
is, Diana will cause the place to be discovered. The scene then 
shifts to the cave where the second satyr is making violent love 
to Clitie, who wards him off with great difficulty. Led by a dog 
to this cave, the friends rescue the nymph. 

Act V. As the unhappy A®gine is‘about to commit suicide, 
Philire suddenly appears and bids her go to the temple, where 
joy awaits her. Cephée demands Clitie as his bride in accordance 
with the law that a shepherd may marry a nymph whom he has 
saved from misfortune; but her avaricious father refuses to — 
consent and invokes his paternal rights. The case is laid before 
the priest of Pan. The god himself appears and upholds the 
father. The lovers appeal to Cupid, who reverses the judgment. 
7Egine finds happiness with Atys, who now bestows his love on 
her. 

Such plays are the source of the technique employed by 
Corneille in writing his first comedies. He says in his Examen 
of Mélite that his guide in playwriting was his common sense, 
together with the examples of the “late Hardy.” It is doubtful 
that Hardy wrote any comedies in classical style. The Hotel 
de Bourgogne evidently found the farce and the pastoral fur- 
nished satisfactory drama of a lighter vein. However that may 
be, Corneille’s Mélite and his Veuve are not derived from the 
farce nor from classical comedy. Their construction can only 
be explained as a development of the technique of the lighter 
pastorals of Hardy, and not of such pastorals as Mairet’s Sylvie 
and Silvanire, which are more in the style of tragi-comedy and 
which follow closely the construction of the Pastor Fido. 


FRENCH CLASSICAL COMEDY 319 


In Mélite (1629), we find Eraste and Tircis, two rivals for 
the love of the heroine, Mélite. Philandre is in love with Cloris, 
the sister of Tircis. The first act of exposition is handled as it 
would have been in a pastoral. The play opens with a scene 
between the two men; and then comes a series of love scenes 
in which the lady rebuffs or accepts her lover’s advances as the 


plot requires. Eraste becomes jealous of Tircis, who he thinks 


is his rival. Although Tircis is an honorable friend, he falls 
in love with Mélite and she returns his affection. The jealous 
Eraste forges love letters purporting to be from Mélite, and he 
has them delivered to Philandre, who easily becomes enamored 
of Mélite, boasts to Tircis of his conquest, and shows him the 
false letters. Cloris accuses Mélite of winning Philandre from 
her, but Mélite protests her innocence. Mélite is informed that 
Tircis is dead and she faints. Eraste, when told that Tircis and 
also Mélite are dead, goes mad with remorse. Licis, however, 
assures Cloris that she announced the death of her brother to 
Mélite to see if she really loved him, for he still lives. Eraste, 
when told that both his friends are alive, asks forgiveness for 
his imposture. Cloris accepts him instead of Philandre; and 
Tircis and Mélite are united. 

With the exception of the nurse, a minor character, there is 
nothing in this play which recalls the farce or classical comedy. 
Even the nurse could have been drawn from a pastoral. In con- 
struction, tone and effect it is a pastoral such as Hardy wrote, 
without the pastoral setting and the element of the marvellous. 
Although the play does not present certain scenes which appear 
in many pastorals, such as the magic incantation and the trial be- 
fore a god, all the scenes which it does contain can be parallelled 
in pastoral comedy. The principal characters carry on the action. 
There are no tricky servants and no confidant. Unlike the plot of 
the farce and that of the Galanteries du Duc d’Ossone, this plot 
is founded on a decent love story; and the love element is 
not a mere background as it is so often in classical comedy. 
The rivals for the hand of the heroine; her hesitation to disclose 
her love; Cloris’ rebuffal by Philandre; her sudden acceptance 


320 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


of Eraste; the heroine’s disclosure of her love at the news of 
the death of her lover; the madness of Eraste when he hears 
Mélite is dead; the lyric lamentations of the lovers; the tirades 
expressing remorse—all these scenes are derived from the pas- 
toral. Many lines are directly inspired by speeches in Mairet’s 
two pastorals, Sylvie and Silvanire. 

In his Examen, Corneille explained the success of the play on 
the ground of its novelty and the style of the dialogue, which 
reproduced the conversation of honorable people. Mélite was 
a novelty, and the dialogue is on a much higher plane than that 
of the crude conversation of the characters in the farce and-in 
classical comedy of the Renaissance. Yet Corneille did not 
produce a new kind of comedy without rules and models. He 
had transferred the mechanism of the pastoral from Arcadia to 
Paris by changing the costumes and the setting. 

Corneille’s second comedy, La Veuve (1633), follows the tech- 
nique of the pastoral very closely. It presents the abduction of 
the heroine in scenes similar to those in Hardy’s Triomphe 
d’Amour. Corneille does not depart from this system. La Galerie 
du Palais (1634), La Suivante (1634), La Place Royale (1635) 
are all founded upon a criss-cross of love motives. At the open- 
ing, two or three men and two or three women are bestowing 
their affection upon each other. A sister tries to intercede for 
a brother (Za Place Royale) ; or a brother insists upon his sister 
returning the affection of a friend (La Veuve). ‘The lovers are 
not settled in their affections; and the original situation is 
quickly altered when one of the characters changes his mind on 
a pretext so slight that the motive is plainly introduced to tangle 
up the different strings by which the playwright moves his 
characters around. The sudden jealousy or change of heart 
does not result from the psychology of the characters. The ruse 
and the resulting criss-cross are manufactured. If Corneille 
wants a certain situation he, not his characters, causes it to 
arise. The psychology of his comic characters reminds one of 
Mélisée, in Scudery’s Avzaur Caché par VAmour, who explains 


FRENCH CLASSICAL COMEDY 327 


her attitude to her lover by saying: ‘Without reason, in loving 
him, I pretended to be cruel.” 

The tangled intrigues revolve, rather than evolve. When the 
fifth act is almost finished the threads are forcibly pulled apart; 
and, as in the pastoral, rather surprising marriages are fore- 
shadowed. As Corneille admitted in his Examen of La Place 
Royale, his play ends with the marriage of episodic characters. 
His plot makes his characters. Thus Alidor, in this play, has 
to have a “wild mind” and find himself troubled by a love which 
attaches him too much to Angélique, in order that the wheels 
of the situation may revolve when he decides to give up his 
mistress to a friend. Then, as Corneille points out, “this love of 
repose does not hinder him in the fifth act from showing himself 
still in love with his mistress, in spite of the resolution he had 
made to get rid of her and the manner in which he betrayed 
her. Thus he seems to begin to love her truly only when he has 
given her reasons to hate him. The result is an unevenness of 
character which is very faulty.” 

Corneille realized that he sacrificed psychology to situation 
in these plays. He said in his dedicatory epistle to La Suivante: 
“Tricks and intrigues are the mainspring of comedy; the passions 
only enter accidentally.” This describes his comedy; but Moliére 
was to show that passions can be the mainspring of plot in 
comedy. 

In composing these plays Corneille was not worrying about 
the unities, although his Examens, written about twenty-five 
years later, discuss them in the light of these classical rules. It 
happens that La Suivante observes the unity of time and that 
La Galerie du Palais does not. Thus his technique was not 
influenced by this rule. In the preface to the edition of La 
Veuve published in 1634, he said of the unity of place: ‘“Some- 
times I narrow it down to the size of the stage, sometimes I 
extend it to a whole town, as in this play. I enlarged it in 
Clitandre to places where one can go in twenty-four hours.” 
Such a liberal interpretation of this rule made unnecessary any 


322. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


modification of the technique of these plays on account of the 
unity of place. 

By the time he was writing his Examens, Corneille was dis- 
tinctly troubled by the fact that his characters held in the street 
conversations which should have taken place indoors. He says: 


Célidée and Hippolyte are two neighbors whose dwellings are 
only separated by a street, and their social status is not too high 
to allow the lovers to talk to them at their door. It is true that 
what they say would be better said in a chamber or in a drawing 
room, and it is only to show themselves that they leave the door, 
by which they should have been screened, and come to the middle 
of the stage to speak; but this is a theatrical licence which must 
be endured in order to find that rigorous unity of place which the 
great abiders by rules demand. It goes a little beyond reality and 
even decorum; but it is almost impossible to do otherwise; and the 
spectators are so accustomed to it that they find in it nothing shock- 
ing (Examen de la Galerie du Palais). 


These ideas are afterthoughts. When he was writing these 
plays he interpreted the rules as he pleased. It was perfectly 
possible to stage interior scenes in the French theatre by with- 
drawing curtains, as in the Galanteries du Duc d’Ossone, or by 
using a simultaneous setting. Corneille was not hampered by 
rules or by lack of scenic appliances in constructing these plays. 
He simply transferred the out-door pastoral to the streets of 
Paris. Du Ryer, in his Vendanges de Suresnes (1635) employed 
the same method, but kept his scene in the suburbs. The shep- 
herd Sylvain in Rotrou’s Diane (1630) becomes a coachman in 
Paris in order to follow his beloved shepherdess to the city. No 
matter where the scene was laid, it had become possible to 
present a play with a light, charming love story, with a happy 
ending and without a recognition scene. The lovers became the 
principal characters on the stage; and the rdéles of the tricky 
servant, the colorless confidant and the nurse were reduced to a 
minimum. Contemporary local customs and manners were sub- 


FRENCH CLASSICAL COMEDY 323 


stituted for those of an impossible Arcadia. Inevitably the 


French comedy of manners began to evolve. 

The farce still furnished scenes of indelicate humor in such 
plays as Verronneau’s Impuissance (1634). .Alizon (1637) and 
the Comédie de Chansons (1640) are a series of farcical scenes 
held together in a very loose manner. They prepared the way 
for comedy of manners such as Desmarets’ popular Visionnaires 
(1637). But when the plot was becoming simple in the hands of 
certain playwrights, the French discovered the rich mine of 
complex plots and astounding situations found beyond the Pyre- 
nees. Unhampered by rules and with a system of stage setting 
consisting of back drops and of a few properties which allowed 
quick and innumerable changes, the Spaniards possessed a flex- 
ible theatre. Their ideal of honor, their duels, maskings, dis- 
guises, hair-breadth escapes, with the complexity of plot derived 
by Spanish dramatists from Italian comedy, produced a drama 
abounding in surprises. Endowed with a fertile romantic imagi- 
nation, Lope de Vega alone used and re-used in his hundreds of 
plays probably every situation known to dramatic art. The 
Beaumarchais, the Scribes and the Sardous of later centuries 
will be the indirect heirs of this wealth of situation. The first 
writer to avail himself of the material was Metel d’Ouville who 
took his Esprit Follet (1641) from Calderon’s Dama Duende. 

The complex plot was not new in France. Italian comedy and 
the pastoral had furnished situations of great intricacy. Spanish 
comedy, however, had an advantage over the Italian comedy. 
Because medieval technique had survived to a greater extent in 
Spain, more of the action was on the stage. There were many 
incidents which led to extreme complications in the play itself. 
The action was easier for the audience to follow because it saw 
the complexities develop within the play itself. In Italian-Latin 
comedy many complications preceded the point of attack and 
were disclosed only at the dénouement. Many Spanish plays are 
extremely intricate and difficult to follow in book form; but 
much of this difficulty would vanish in a theatrical presentation. 
The reverse is partly true of many comedies of purely classical 


324 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


technique. Obscurity resulting from many incidents within a 
play is less inartistic than obscurity due to a few incidents be- 
yond the ken of the audience in the theatre. Therefore the 
Spanish drama was a better model for French playwrights than 
was Italian comedy. 

However, the inevitable difficulties arose in the attempt to 
adapt the freer Spanish form to a theatre which was beginning 
to observe the rules of the unities. On the French stage, scenes 
could change, since the unity of place was interpreted as meaning 
that the action takes place in one town. Corneille’s Illusion 
Comique (1636) requires a multiple setting consisting of a palace 
in the centre of the stage; on one side, a cave in a mountain; 
and on the other side, a park. A modification of this system 
could be effected by setting a scene only in a particular act, as 
in Mairet’s Criséide et Arimant, in which the “tomb and the 
altar appear only in the fifth act,” according to the memorandum 
of Mahelot, the stage carpenter of the Hotel de Bourgogne. In 
the Galanteries du Duc d’Ossone a procedure is found which is 
probably the beginning of a new method of changing the scene. 
In the second act the stage direction reads: “When he has en- 
tered, the drop which represents the facade of a house is drawn, 
and the interior of the small room appears.” A second room is 
disclosed in the same scene, as is shown by the direction: “Here 
the second drop is drawn and Flavie appears on her bed.” In 
the decade of the forties, scenes were changed between the acts 
when necessary, as in Corneille’s Menteur, Scarron’s Jodelet, ou 
le Maitre-Valet, and Rotrou’s Laure Persecutée. Yet French 
playwrights evidently preferred as few changes as possible, for 
Corneille reduced the number of sets in Alarcon’s Verdad 
Sospechosa from six to two in his Menteur. He even expressed 
regret in 1660 that the change of setting drew attention to the 
change of scene. 

The same conservative attitude toward the unity of time is 
illustrated by the fact that he reduced the three or four days 
through which the action extends in the Spanish original, to about 
thirty-six hours. Thus the rules were having their effect, al- 


FRENCH CLASSICAL COMEDY 325 


though they were not so rigorously observed as they were later 
in the century. Even this relative freedom was not enough to 
insure the artistic construction of plays in which a developing 
action is one of the main sources of interest. The psychological 
analysis of a great emotional crisis, the development of a human 
soul in one or two dramatic situations may well be portrayed in a 
drama which observes the rules; but complex plots portraying 
many situations demand more time and space than French drama 
even of this period cared to allow. The more intricate the 
mechanism, the greater is the damage caused by the displacement 
or loss of even the smallest wheel. And Spanish plays were 
complicated machines, which lost certain parts in being trans- 
ported to the French stage. 

In writing the Cid, Corneille centred the interest upon a 
psychological problem. The incidents were subordinate to the 
developing action. His compression of the action and his ex- 
cision of many of the events in the original play intensified the 
mental struggle of his principal characters and threw the problem 
into strong relief. In pure comedy and in romantic tragi-comedy, 
in which the greater part of the interest is centred upon a 
series of remarkable events causing intricate situations, the in- 
fluence of the Spanish drama was less felicitous, because of the 
ever-increasing constraint of the rules. Thus Corneille in the 
Menteur and the Suite du Menteur (1643)—the latter derived 
from Lope’s Amar sin Saber a quién—threw the mechanism some- 
what out of gear by dropping certain scenes. If a play depends 
primarily upon events, these events ought to be enacted. If a 
plot is complicated, the spectators ought to see the complications 
develop. In Corneille’s adaptations many of the important 
scenes are narrated. For example, in Amar sin Saber a quién 
the initial cause of the action is a duel in which one of the 
adversaries is slain. An innocent man arrives at this moment, 
is accused of murder and is imprisoned. Corneille begins his 
play after the hero is imprisoned. 

Corneille also omitted, among other scenes, a very complicated 
situation in which the prevaricating hero seems to be making 


326 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


love to one girl by day and to the other by night. This scene 
takes place in the semi-darkness of a chapel. It would not 
have been credible in a public square. Because of French preju- 
dice against laying a scene of comedy in such a locality, Corneille 
could not reproduce it, even had he wished to retain the plot in 
all its complexity. The rules of decorum forbade even the 
utterance of the word église on the French stage. 

The dénouement of the French play is brought about by a 
change of affection on the part of the hero who transfers his 
love rather suddenly, but in a manner reminiscent of Corneille’s 
young men, from one lady to another. The Spanish play is more 
convincing because the liar is forced to accept the woman he 
pretended to love. Thus he reaps the penalty of his weakness. 

By such processes the Spanish drama was constantly robbed 
of much of its greatest asset: the swift, picturesque action. In 
the Menteur, the propensity of the hero to prevaricate, the main- 
spring of the whole plot, is not foreshadowed as it is in a scene in 
Alarcon’s play. Thus not only the plot itself, but the characters 
often become less convincing when transported to France. 

Such faults in these adaptations are manifest when they are 
compared with their sources. Yet in comparison with earlier 
French comedies, these plays mark a distinct advance. Obscure 
as they may be in certain points, they still retain some of the 
picturesque movement and the romantic gaiety of Spanish drama. 
“Honest men” can laugh and be thrilled by the duels and the 
clandestine meetings of lovers to whom a bit of romance is 
worth the risk of life and honor. The cynical indecency emanat- 
‘ing from Italy and from the indigenous farce, as exemplified in 
the Galanteries du Duc d’Ossone, the artificial pastoral concep- 
tion of love, as exemplified in Corneille’s earlier comedies, are 
replaced by emotions much more dramatic and sympathetic. 
Spanish heroines, who run real danger with a brave smile as they 
meet their lovers, appeal to us more than do their Italian sisters, 
whose passions are tinged with cynical jesting, more than do 
the French heroines, who are often pouting shepherdesses from 
Arcadia. 


FRENCH CLASSICAL COMEDY 327 


In Scarron’s plays, which are drawn from Spanish sources, 
this romantic and dramatic interest is so striking that there is 
little difference between his comedy and tragi-comedy. The 
conflict between love and honor is so real and the emotions of 
his characters are so human that the situations are theatrical, 
at least. One is actually interested in the outcome of the story. 
The action reaches a higher climax than in classical comedy, 
where generally a series of obstacles, which could occur in almost 
any order, is presented. The dénouement grows out of the plot 
instead of from a mere recognition. The conflict is a real prob- 
lem. In a word, French comedy under Spanish influence is more 
than a series of comic scenes. 

The Menteur had pointed the way which French writers were 
to follow for a few years; but Scarron’s Jodelet, ou le Maitre- 
Valet (1645) is of greater importance in the development of 
comedy because it not only kept the romance of Spanish plots, 
but also definitely introduced burlesque and the lowly farce into 
regular comedy. The principal character, Jodelet, is the ancestor 
of that long line of valets, Mascarille, Scapin, Crispin, etc., 
which will culminate in the brilliant Figaro. Jodelet himself 
comes of an old family which reaches back to the clever, though 
often cowardly slave of Latin comedy; but in this play he domi- 
nates all. 

Don Juan goes to Madrid with his valet, Jodelet, to meet his 
intended bride, Isabelle, whom he has never seen. Jodelet con- 
fesses that, through a mistake, he has dispatched to Isabelle his 
own grotesque portrait, instead of his master’s. On finding the 
house of his lady, Don Juan is no little disturbed when he 
beholds a gallant descend from the balcony. In order to observe 
the situation of affairs, he decides to change positions with his 
valet. Act II. Isabelle upbraids her maid for having allowed 
the unwelcome lover, Don Louis, to enter. Isabelle, judging 
Don Juan from Jodelet’s portrait, is unwilling to marry him. 
Lucréce, who turns out later to be Don Juan’s sister, has been 
abandoned by Don Louis, who slew her brother. She begs aid 
from Don Fernand, Isabelle’s father. The arrival of the long- 


328 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


nosed Jodelet as the future husband causes a disagreeable sur- 
prise. He is a grotesque figure, magnificently impossible as 
a lover and gentleman. Act III. Don Louis, in love with Isa- 
belle, takes courage; but Isabelle, learning that he seduced 
Lucréce, scorns him. Jodelet makes violent love to Isabelle, 
and beats Don Juan, who tries to interfere. Isabelle feels drawn 
to the supposed valet. Don Louis, meeting Lucréce who is veiled, 
mistakes her for Isabelle and makes love to her. As she discloses 
her identity, Don Juan appears and challenges Don Louis to a 
duel on the spot. Don Fernand bursts into the room. Don Juan 
orders Don Louis to fight a duel with Jodelet who is supposed by 
Don Louis to be the master. Act IV. Jodelet, toothpick in hand, 
burlesques the stances of the Cid on honor, saying: “Be clean, 
my teeth, honor so commands.” Informed of his approaching 
duel, he gives all his comic cowardice free play in a scene of 
burlesque humor, first with Don Fernand and then with his 
master Don Juan, who finally bids Jodelet summon Don Louis. 
Act V. Jodelet, after one lunge at Don Louis, puts out the light 
in the room so that Don Juan may do the real fighting. Don 
Fernand appears as they fight. Don Juan discloses his real 
identity, and Don Louis promises to marry Lucréce while Don 
Juan is gladly accepted by Isabelle. 

While other playwrights from 1645 to 1660 were reproducing 
plots of an intricacy bordering upon confusion, Scarron saw in 
Spanish comedy situations fitting for burlesque and buffoonery 
of the gayest sort. The duels, the clandestine meetings, the 
_ balcony scenes, the fine point of honor, the gallantry of words 
and deeds became sources of farce comedy without losing all of 
their melodramatic flavor. Were he alive today he would pro- 
duce melodramas which satirize their own tricks, such as The 
Seven Keys to Baldpate. His originality consisted in not taking 
Spanish drama seriously. The result was a joyous mixture of 
melodrama and burlesque humor, with the latter element happily 
predominating, just at a time when romantic heroism on the 
French stage needed the corrective of laughter. 

His Don Japhet d’Arménie (1652), drawn from Castillo Soldr- 


SS a 


FRENCH CLASSICAL COMEDY 326 


zano’s Marqués del Cigarral, works up to scenes of Gargantuan 
humor in which the situations and dialogue are Rabelaisian, but 
undeniably funny. This retired court fool, while seeking his 
lady, finally climbs a balcony only to have the ladder removed. 
There he remains a prey to threats and stones from the crowd 
below, and deprived of his clothes; and the next morning he 
tries to explain his shivering condition on the pretext that he 
was going to bathe. The lines throughout the play are the crisp, 
incisive dialogue of the farce written by a master of burlesque 
and cynicism. Not since Pathelin had such comic brilliance 
sparkled on the French stage. Only Moliére and Beaumarchais 
surpass Scarron in this respect. 

Clever plotting is not sufficient to satisfy an audience for all 
time. After a period of a few years in which well-made plays 
have flourished, a reaction sets in against this type of drama. 
The Spanish comedia had been extremely valuable to French 
playwrights who have always been partial to drama of great 
technical artistry. French classical tragedy has been accused of 
a deficiency of action; but if the development of French drama 
is surveyed as a whole from Hardy down to the present time, 
it will be seen that, whether the unities are observed or not, 
French plays contain, as a rule, a well-balanced plot with enough 
coups de thédtre to satisfy an audience of almost any nationality. 
The fact that certain incidents were not usually enacted in 
classical tragedy must not cause one to believe that the French, 
after the jejune tragedies of the Renaissance, cared little for a 
developing dramatic action. 

At this period, however, in spite of the two Corneilles with 
their intricate plays, the plot became less important. Scarron 
used it as a means to devise farcical situations. Cyrano de 
Bergerac, in his Pédant Joué, treated his story in a cavalier 
fashion. The farce reappeared with its octosyllabic verse in the 
short plays of Poisson. The comedy of character and the comedy 
of manners began to displace the comedy of plot. The transition 
was slow and gentle. The germs of these new comedies were pres- 
ent in the Visionnaires, in Corneille’s comedies, and in such plays 


330 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


as Alizon in which contemporary life and manners are treated. 
Even Corneille’s Menteur, produced under Spanish influence, 
foreshadowed a comedy in which a study of character would over- 
balance the interest in the development of the story. Scarron 
would not take melodramatic situations seriously even when 
tragi-comedy was popular. Jodelet and Don Japhet themselves, 
not the story of the plays in which they appear, focus our atten- 
tion. Cyrano’s pedant, Gillet de la Tessonnerie’s character of 
the countryman in his Campagnard, not the plots of the plays, 
made them successful. The latter play is a series of episodes 
devised to portray a provincial who tries to succeed in urban 
society. Together with Tristan L’Hermite’s Parasite these plays 
hark back both to Italian comedy and to the farce. The lovers 
are subsidiary to the parasite, the matamore or braggart captain, 
the false astrologer, the pedant, the irate parents. These char- 
acters can be found in Spanish plays, but they had already come 
from Italy before they arrived from Spain. In pure Spanish 
comedy, the lovers are important in the story and on the stage. 

Quinault’s Amant Indiscret (1654) is a comedy directly imi- 
tated either from Barbieri’s Jnavvertito or some other similar 
Italian play in which a stupid lover disarranges all the plans of 
the tricky servants to bring him and his mistress together. In 
all respects this piece is Italian not Spanish. Thus in the years 
when Moliéere was touring the provinces before his return to 
Paris in 1658, the comic form was once more in a fluid state 
awaiting a master hand to mould it into a master form. 

Moliére brought from his long tour in the provinces a few 
plays which bear the hall-marks of the commedia dell’ arte and 
of the farce as modified by this form of Italian drama. His 
Eiourdi is constructed along the same lines as Quinault’s Amant 
Indiscret. A lover frustrates by his stupidity the ruses of his 
clever valet to win for him his lady love. The Dépit Amoureux 
is also a play in the Italian style, although the scenes of the 
lovers’ quarrels and the burlesque of these episodes by the valet 
and the maid are probably from Lope de Vega’s Perro del Horie- 
lano. These two plays depend upon the plot for their interest, 


oui 


MOLIERE 331 


although the intrigue of the Dépit Amoureux has not the me- 
chanical perfection of the Etourdi. 

Had Moliére been content to be merely a clever adapter of the 
ingenious plots found in superabundance in Spanish and Italian 
theatres, his importance in the development of drama would have 
been almost negligible. There were many playwrights of his 
time who could produce well-made plays. His indebtedness to 
his predecessors and contemporaries whether French, Italian or 
Spanish is so great, so constant, that one is often at a loss to 
decide from which of the many sources discovered by a host of 
modern investigators he drew certain scenes and plots. He, 
himself, would have been unable to point out the immediate 
source of his borrowings. He must not be thought of as a man 
with scissors and paste pot, clipping scenes from Spanish and 
Italian comedy and joining them in new combinations. Steeped 
in theatrical atmosphere and acquainted with all these plots, 
scenes and characters, he used them, not as a scholar arranges 
facts which he extracts from documents, but as a creative genius 
whose brain is a crucible for metal which may already have 
been moulded many times, but which comes forth from the 
new refining process purer and more beautifully formed. 
Moliére borrowed, but he did not imitate, as did his predeces- 
sors, in the sense of taking a foreign play and adapting it to 
the French stage. One place where he found dramatic material, 
had been overlooked by his fellow playwrights. He delved into 
human character and society, and he drew from these unfailing 
sources of humor the highest forms of comedy: comedy of man- 
ners and comedy of character. 

As an actor, he had learned what can be done on the stage. 
As a manager, he had learned to please an audience. As a 
playwright, he had learned all that a man in 1660 in France 
could know about dramatic technique. As a man, he learned 
to know human society. He was essentially and first of all a 
human being, whereas so many writers had been first of all 
playmakers. Corneille himself did not always penetrate deeply 


332 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


into the recesses of human psychology. The plot meant too 
much to him. Racine alone of Moliére’s contemporaries ap- 
proached him in the delicate analysis of the human mind in 
dramatic form. These two dramatists were such masters of the 
art of constructing plays that they rarely allowed tricks of their 
trade to lead them into mere plotting for the sake of the plot. 

The farce was the bridge over which Moliére passed from 
comedy of plot to comedy of manners. Although disdained by 
the cultured, the farce was a too popular form of amusement 
to become extinct. It held its place in the theatre and in the 
street. During the years from 1619 to 1626, the celebrated 
Tabarin and his Italian wife played this kind of comedy on a 
temporary stage on the Pont Neuf, while such farceurs as Gros 
Guillaume caused the audiences in the Hotel de Bourgogne to 
roar with Gargantuan laughter. 

The farce underwent the influence of the commedia dell’ arte 
in that it began to use stock characters, but with daubed and 
powdered faces instead of Italian masks. ‘The medieval spirit 
is still manifest in the situations dealing with marital infidelity. 
In one of Tabarin’s farces, which recalls the medieval Naudet 
and others, Tabarin and his wife begin with mutual recrimina- 
tions. Tabarin overhears two old men bargain one after the 
other with his wife, who promises one of them a rendezvous at 
midnight, and the other a clandestine meeting two hours later. 
Tabarin accuses his wife of shocking infidelity, but she excul- 
pates herself by asserting she is merely tricking the old fellows 
for their money. ‘Tabarin then dresses in his wife’s clothes, 
meets the gallants separately, gets the money, and beats them 
soundly. 

The dialogue of these farces is in part only French, for 
Piphagne, the old man, speaks Italian and Captain Rodomont 
talks a jargon of Spanish. The fact that it is in prose instead 
of in the octosyllabic verse of the native farce shows the influ- 
ence of commedia dell’ arte. Farcical tricks, such as putting 
characters into sacks and beating them, were employed by 
Moliére. There is no doubt that Moliére saw just such farces 


MOLIERE 333 


and perhaps Tabarin himself. When Moliére returned to Paris 
in 1658, Scaramouche and his troupe of farceurs were playing 
at the theatre of the Petit Bourbon. Moliére shared the stage 
with them on alternate nights. 

The farce often dealt with a situation borrowed from con- 
temporary, real life. The plot was generally simple in com- 
parison to the machine-made stories of more literary comedy. 
Thus this lowly form of theatrical entertainment, with all its 
tricks and burlesque, seems more realistic than the more highly 
developed drama of the period. It is a little play which repre- 
sents contemporary manners. This simplicity of plot and the 
burlesque of customs had an influence on Moliére even in his 
finest comedies, such as the Précieuses Ridicules, while many 
of his plays, such as the Médecin malgré Lui and George Dandin, 
are highly developed farces. In the latter play, an unfaithful 
wife and her lover, a man from the upper classes, successfully 
hoodwink the husband of humble birth and make him accept the 
situation in the true medieval style of the farce. 

At the rise of the curtain on the Précieuses Ridicules (1659) 
we find two young men have been very coldly received by two 
young women who objected to their straightforward, manly 
proposal of marriage. These girls wish to be wooed in the long- 
winded, .affected manner of the times, according to the codes 
laid down in the romantic novels. They are précieuses or high- 
brows who demand stilted phraseology and pedantry in con- 
versation. The young men decide to play a farcical trick on 
them by sending their two valets to call costumed as marquis. 
Mascarille and Jodelet, characters of the comedy-of-masks, arrive 
dressed in the latest style. In scenes of gayest wit, they proceed 
to charm these young ladies with their foppish conversation, in 
which social customs are delightfully ridiculed. The young men 
return in the midst of a dance with which these so-called wits 
are regaling the feminine social climbers. They expose the 
trick, strip the valets of their borrowed finery and beat them 
in the usual manner of the slapstick farce. Then they leave, 
followed in a moment by their valets. The sensible old father 


334 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


beats the musicians who demand their pay; and then he in- 
forms the girls that this is what they have brought upon them- 
selves by their nonsensical notions. The comedy is ended— 
ended as farces generally end, when the trick is played and some- 
one is roundly thrashed in a boisterous scene. No marriage, no 
reconciliation is even hinted. It is the technique of the farce 
from quick beginning to sudden ending. But on this century- 
old framework Moliére has delicately woven a short but incisive 
comedy of manners. The audience laughed and then went out 
of the theatre and thought, perhaps for the first time after hav- 
ing seen a comedy. The highest form of comedy causes laughter 
that makes an audience gasp before the laugh is ended and think 
of the foibles of human beings. Moliére had produced such a 
comedy. 

The Ecole des Maris (1661) has the hall-marks of Italian 
comedy from the street-scene to the dénouement. It is primarily 
a comedy of plot, full of the gay situations and the clever tricks 
of the comedy-of-masks. Even the persons it portrays are stock 
characters. Yet the fundamental idea upon which the whole 
play is built is by no means merely farcical. Two brothers, 
Ariste and Sganarelle, have brought up two young girls whom 
they wish to marry. But the education of these wards has been 
very different. Ariste has allowed Léonor freedom and the pleas- 
ures of youth. Sganarelle has kept Isabelle under unnatural 
restraint. The result of these two systems is that Léonor loves 
Ariste and marries him, while Isabelle deceives her tyrannical 
guardian and marries a young man. The comedy is almost a 
problem play. Mere cleverness of plot no longer satisfied Mo- 
liére. 

‘When you paint men (in comedy),” says Dorante in the 
Critique de l’Ecole des Femmes, “you must paint after nature; 
the portraits must be likenesses, and you have not succeeded if 
people do not recognize in them the men of the age.” This is a 
part of Moliére’s confession of faith, and it reveals clearly the 
difference between him and other playwrights of the age. They 
were like painters who copy pictures. Moliére took living 


MOLIERE 335 


models. This does not mean that, like Aristophanes, he produced 
comic portraits of certain individuals, except in one or two 
cases; but, like a skilled artist, he reproduced from his living 
models the characteristics of men and women of his age. His 
work quivered with the life of his time. It was not a copy of 
conventional types handed on from ancient comedy. Scarron, 
in writing his comedies in which Jodelet appears, had infused 
not a little life into this character, partially because he used 
Jodelet, the actor, as a model. Mliére, like Scarron and like 
Shakespeare, incorporated certain physical characteristics of 
actors in the characters they were to play; but the psychological 
characteristics of his people are drawn from men and women, not 
from types of comic roles or from actors. 

Dorante also says that in comedy one must deal with the 
absurdities of men and show on the stage in a pleasing fashion 
the defects of all mankind. In the Ecole des Femmes (1662), 
Moliére handled his theme with this idea uppermost in his mind. 
The play deals with an old man, known as Arnolphe and as M. 
de la Souche, who has brought up Agnes in strict seclusion be- 
cause he has the idea that ignorance and innocence are synony- 
mous. He is about to marry his ward when the young Horace 
appears upon the scene. Horace falls in love with Agnes and 
meets her in secret. Not knowing that her cerberus, M. de la 
Souche, is Arnolphe, he makes a confidant of the old man and 
throws him constantly into spasms of fear and rage by telling 
him of his successful wooing of Agnes. A recognition of Agnes 
as a long-lost child brings the dénouement of this plot, which 
is patterned in its incidents after the Italian comedy-of-masks, 
with certain scenes drawn from the farce. The plot was taken 
from Scarron’s translation of El Prevenido Enganado, a novel by 
Maria Zayas de Sotomayor. 

In spite of these resemblances and borrowings, the Ecole des 
Femmes marks a distinct advance in the technique of comedy. 
One of the objections raised against the play in the tempest of 
criticism which it aroused was that “in this comedy there is no 
action; the whole consists of narrations given by Horace and 


336 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Agnes” (La Critique de Vitcole des Femmes, sc. VII). If by 
“action” one means events such as the clandestine meetings of 
the lovers with which contemporary comedy filled many scenes, 
the charge is true. These traditional scenes are left out of sight. 
The lovers do not meet before our eyes until the middle of the 
last act. Dorante, Moliére’s spokesman, replies to this criticism: 
“There is a good deal of action on the stage; and according to 
the arrangement of the subject the narrations themselves are all 
action,—since they are innocently repeated to the person con- 
cerned, who by this means is thrown at every turn into a con- 
fusion which amuses the spectators,—and at every fresh piece 
of information he takes all the measures in his power to ward 
off the misfortunes he dreads.” 

What Corneille did for tragedy in the Cid, Moliére did for 
comedy in the Ecole des Femmes. They interpreted dramatic 
action to mean the psychological reactions produced by certain 
events, occurring in apparently inevitable sequence, on charac- 
ters who are thereby stimulated to follow a certain line of 
conduct. Had Moliére arranged the subject according to the 
methods in vogue in comedy, he would have put the events on 
the stage and centred the interest in the plot, as he had often 
done in earlier plays. 

Italian comedy of the Renaissance, following Latin comedy, 
had portrayed the tricks devised to unite the lovers, who rarely 
met on the stage. Corneille, under the influence of the pastoral, 
brought the love story on the stage. Spanish comedy gave 
French playwrights a more romantic conception of love. It 
showed the meetings, the jealousies, the danger of the lovers un- 
der the laws of honor. The scenes were theatrically effective 
because the more sericus treatment of the love motive increased 
the suspense. In the Ecole des Femmes, because of the “arrange- 
ment of the subject,” such incidents are off the stage, as in early 
Italian comedy; but psychological action is introduced which 
more than compensates for the loss of physical action. True 
comedy arises from the effect of the events on the mind of 
Arnolphe, just as in the Cid true tragedy arises from the effect 


a ee a 
=, bie ~ 


MOLIERE 337 


of the events on the minds of Rodrigue and Chiméne. And both 
authors were subjected to attacks by their stupid enemies and 
were accused of writing poor plays which sinned against the 
rules ! 

With the Ecole des Femmes and the Précieuses Ridicules, high 
comedy of character and comedy of manners come into existence 
in France. The setting for the Précieuses Ridicules is an interior, 
while in the later Ecole des Femmes the action takes place in 
the street in accordance with a tradition which can be traced 
back to Aristophanes’ Plutus. In earlier plays of Scarron and 
of other writers, comedy had gone indoors, but generally into a 
bedroom, as in many a modern farce of French extraction. The 
scene was conditioned by the exigencies of the plot, which de- 
manded that people be hidden or discovered in compromising 
situations. The true domestic interior—the common living 
rooms—was not shown until high comedy of manners and of 
character gained a foothold in such plays as Tartufe, the Misan- 
thrope and the Femmes Savantes. The street-scene remained 
in plays which are distinctly of the Italian type, such as the 
Fourberies de Scapin and the Comtesse d’Escarbagnas. In the 
Médecin malgré Lui the scene changes from an exterior to an 
interior, as in the medieval farce. Exterior scenes, however, 
become less frequent after the success of Moliére’s comedies of 
manners; and in the eighteenth century they are very rare at the 
Comédie Francaise, because Tartufe and the Misanthrope, espe- 
cially, were the models of comedy for many years to come. 

Moliére, like most successful dramatists, believed that the 
rule of rules was to please. He generally observed the unities, 
although he allowed himself the liberty of disregarding the unities 
of place and time in Don Juan; and the unity of action is not 
strictly retained in the Fdcheux. He refused to regard the 
unities as sacred, esoteric mysteries never to be disturbed. His 
usual observance of them did not cause him to omit important 
scenes. He was more likely to include the scene even in a some- 
what unfitting setting. Thus in the Ecole des F emmes, Arnolphe 
gives Agnes instructions as to the correct conduct of women and 


338 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


maxims for married life’ in a scene which would naturally take 
place indoors. Having chosen the setting of a street, Moliére 
simply allows the dialogue to take place with the characters sit- 
ting on chairs in the open air. 

His point of attack is relatively late. The situation which 
causes the action is already in existence when the play begins. 
Tartufe is installed in Orgon’s family. The Misanthrope is in 
love with Céliméne, the coquette. George Dandin already sus- 
pects his wife of infidelity. Yet in none of his plays can one 
point to a scene in the story before the point of attack and say 
with certainty that it should be included in the play. 

He employs the usual means of exposition known in France 
at his time; but his sparkling wit and his directness enable him 
to avoid the dullness so often attendant upon expository scenes 
of classical drama. In the Femmes Savantes the whole situa- 
tion and many details of character are imparted in scenes of 
high comedy, in which the learned Armande, the natural Hen- 
riette, and their silly spinster aunt, Bélise, discuss the question 
of which one is loved by Clitandre. We are thus given an en- 
lightening first glimpse of this family, torn by the struggle 
between pretentious learning and common sense. 

In Tartufe, however, Moliére shows the greatest artistry in 
his daring form of exposition. Tartufe—his name, his actions, 
his health, his appearance, his ideas and finally the question of 
his sincerity or hypocrisy are discussed until keen suspense and 
desire to behold this creature are aroused. Not until the begin- 
ning of the third act does he enter. He is the central figure, and 
from his hypocrisy springs the whole plot. Until the dénouement, 
the play is an almost perfect piece of dramatic mechanism. 

In this play, Moliére maintained the correct balance between 
plot and characters. It is no mere gallery of portraits passed 
in review as in the Faécheux. A whole family, consisting of 
persons of distinctly different temperaments, is shown in a strug- 
gle of life or death with a hypocrite. Tartufe has wormed his 
way into the good graces of the credulous father, Orgon. Not 
content with wishing to marry the daughter, he casts his slimy 


MOLIERE 339 


eyes upon the wife, Elmire: When he is exposed by Elmire, he 
defies Orgon, for he has not only gained possession of Orgon’s 
property, but of certain compromising political papers. The 
situation is saved only by the intervention of the King’s justice. 

The situation is a gripping problem of life. Comedy has de- 
veloped from a representation of the obstacles in the path of 
marionette lovers to a dramatic analysis of the psychology of 
a whole section of society. By reducing the importance of the 
plot, comedy has become almost serious drama. Yet the plot is 
by no means slight and overshadowed by the study of character, 
as is the case in the Misanthrope. The action in Tartufe leads 
through constant suspense to strong climaxes. Only Moliére’s 
unfailing wit and humor save the story from becoming so grip- 
ping as to be tragic. 

He does not hesitate to draw humorous scenes from the inex- 
haustible source of the farce whenever his more serious plots 
begin to border too closely on sombre effects. Thus the scene 
in which Orgon tries to silence the garrulous maid, with its care- 
fully worked out comic business, is a bit of farce comedy. In 
the Misanthrope the episode in which the breathless servant 
hunts through his pockets for an important letter and discovers 
that he has left it at home is nothing more than a trick of 
commedia dell’ arte. Yet such incidents, though extraneous in a 
strict sense, are justifiable, because Moliére, while treating seri- 
ous themes, had to keep the general impression humorous. Such 
scenes are not inartistic comic relief. They are incidents intro- 
duced to keep the audience in the desired comic mood. 

As a general rule, Moliere was careful to prepare for and fore- 
shadow the action in his plays. He keeps the audience in sus- 
pense not only in his comedies of plot, but also in his comedies 
of manners and of characters. He does not enlighten us so care- 
fully as does the modern playwright in regard to the circum- 
stances of the-past and the heredity of his characters; but he 
never falls into the modern fault of making his plays a treatise 
of pseudo-biological or medical science. A careful analysis of 
his method in Tartufe shows that he has explained sufficiently 


340 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the essential qualities of his characters. The credulity of Orgon 
and his attempted tyranny are explained and foreshadowed by 
the similar traits of character displayed by his mother in the 
first act. On the other hand, the audience hears of the valuable 
but compromising papers only at the end of the fourth act. In 
his finest comedies, one must look with meticulous care before 
characteristics or incidents are dicovered which are not motivated 
or which do not lead to dramatic action. Moliére was far 
beyond his contemporaries in the study of the traits of human 
character which furnish material for drama. 

If Moliére is to be criticized at all, it is in his handling of the 
ending of many of his plays. A trivial comic plot can end about 
as the author pleases; but when a profound problem of human 
life is made the subject of a comedy, we have learned to demand 
a logical dénouement that evolves from the first hypothesis. 
The more serious the problem, the more difficult it is to keep the 
‘ending from being depressing. eo 

There are two distinct types of dénouement in comedy. There 
is the ending brought about by a recognition or a discovery which 
generally shows that the supposed troubles of problem did not 
exist. Moliére used this dénouement freely even in such plays as 
the Ecole des Femmes and in L’Avare. In order to bring 
about a happy ending in L’Avare, four characters have to be 
shipwrecked, separated and have changed their names before the 
play begins. Also there is the cynical ending of the farce, 
which Moliére employed in George Dandin. At the end of the 
play, the hero is in the same fix in which he was at the beginning, 
and he can think of nothing better to do than to jump head fore- 
most into the water. Of course the problem of a peasant mar- 
ried to a coquette of noble birth was not viewed by Moliére as 
it would have been by a Dumas or an Augier. Moliére did not 
treat it seriously. He learned from the failure of his Don 
Garcie that his audience did not want him to write even tragi- 
comedy; but he treated certain problems with such thought that 
we cannot dismiss them with a laugh as we do the situation in 
George Dandin. Perhaps we do Moliére both honor and injus- 


a 


MOLIERE 341 


tice by taking him more seriously than he would wish. When 
hypocrisy or avarice undermines a family, we want to know 
what is the logical outcome. We wish Moliére had told us, 
instead of sweeping away the actual situation by the intervention 
of the King in Tartufe and by recognitions in L’Avare. In the 
Ecole des Maris the ending is a logical result of the two systems 
of education employed by the brothers; but in the Ecole des 
Femmes, Agnes escapes an odious marriage partially by a discov- 
ery. Moliére, in the Misanthrope, did not hesitate to follow his 
problem of an upright, too outspoken man in love with a coquette 
to a logical end. The hero insists on telling the truth with un- 
necessary frankness. He was more of a comic figure to the 
Frenchman of his day than he is to us moderns because he de- 
parted too much from the usual ideal of a gentleman of that 
time. He was abnormal. His vice was a virtue carried to ex- 
treme. Yet the ending of the play is logical and it could not 
have impressed the contemporary audience as being the usual 
happy dénouement. The lovers are ‘not united. 

Why then does Moliére seem to prefer a fortuitous dénouement 
to a logical ending in other plays, if the answer to the problem 
would naturally be tragic? Why, in Tartufe, does he prefer 
to pay a graceful compliment to the King and save the family 
from disaster by a fortunate discovery? He was undoubtedly 
influenced by the classical rule that comedy must end happily. 
He may have felt that he had answered his problem, and had 
shown that misanthropy, hypocrisy, avarice, social ambition, mis- 
alliance, tyranny over youth, intellectual pretentiousness are 
dangerous but are not fatal, as Othello’s jealousy and Lear’s mis- 
takes in judgment are fatal to all who come in contact with 
them. 

Also, his plays on such subjects may be considered as having 
as a point of departure a theme rather than a problem to be 
answered. Tartufe shows us hypocrisy but does not attempt to 
solve the problem of hypocrisy. Just as Galsworthy’s Loyalties 
stops without trying to solve the problem of loyalty, so Tartufe 
comes to an end when the portrait of the hypocrite is complete 


342 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


and the hypocrisy has been presented in many of its forms. 
The dénouement of a play based upon an abstract theme is less 
important than the dénouement of a play dealing with a con- 
crete problem. 

George Dandin might have been called Meésalliance and 
Moliére might have treated the problem of intermarriage of 
classes seriously. Had he done so, he would have created the 
piece a@ thése; and much incisive wit and gay laughter would 
have been lost to the world. But Moliére treated serious themes 
of life with thoughtful humor.’ He left the implacable, pitiless 
logic of the dénouement to the dramatists of the nineteenth 
century. 


CHAPTER XII 
FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE. HARDY 


HROUGHOUT the Middle Ages the words “tragedy” and 

“comedy” had been applied to non-dramatic as well as dra- 
matic literature. Any work in grandiose style, on an historical 
subject, dealing with characters of royal birth whose bloody 
downfall caused the misfortune of the state, could be entitled a 
tragedy, even though it was not written to be represented or in 
dialogue form. This conception of tragedy was derived from 
Donatus and Diomedes and was strengthened by ideas drawn 
from Horace, Vitruvius and Seneca, even after the discovery was 
made in Italy at the close of the fifteenth century that tragedies 
were intended for presentation on a stage. This medieval mis- 
conception was handed on to the humanists of the Renaissance 
by Badius in the preface to his edition of Terence (1504). He 
also pointed out on the authority of Donatus and of Horace that 
tragedy is divided into five acts and that the function of the 
chorus is to separate the acts. Characteristics of the art of 
tragedy were discussed in greater detail by Badius in his com- 
mentaries on the text of Seneca (1514). He held that the action 
of tragedy should develop from happiness to misfortune; deaths 
and scenes of violence should be narrated; the ending must be 
most turbulent. He described the réle of the nurse as the chief 
confidante of the heroine. As the result of such practice and 
theories, the exposition given by a queen and her nurse was to 
rival in frequency the exposition given by a ghost or a super- 
natural character. 

These were the outstanding elements in the art of tragedy in 
the first half of the sixteenth century in France. Even transla- 
tions of Greek tragedy in Latin, such as Hecuba and Iphigenia 
in Aulis (Erasmus, 1506), and translations in French of Electra 

343 


344 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


(Lazare de Baif, 1537), Hecuba (Bouchetel, 1545), lphigenia 
(Sibilet, 1549), did not change or even add to this somewhat 
medieval conception. Nothing of the spirit and significance of 
Greek tragedy and indeed none of the deeper beauties of its 
technique was discovered by the humanists. The pathetic and 
atrocious elements of Greek tragedy, as exemplified by Hecudba, 
caused this tragedy to be often reprinted and translated. As 
the motive of mistaken identity had been furnished to comedy 
of the Renaissance by Menechmi, so the misfortunes of this 
wife and mother, which call forth grandiose pathos and cries 
for vengeance and which exemplify the instability of human 
happiness, became a leading motive for the tragedy of the 
Renaissance. 

The first original tragedies printed in France were written 
by the Italian Conti known among the humanists as Stoa. They 
are in Latin, and are entitled Theoandrothanatos (1508) and 
‘Theocrisis (1514). They are the Passion and Last Judgment of 
medieval drama reduced to five acts with a chorus. They are 
good examples of the hnmanistic Uatin tragedy which spread 
from Italy through Europe at this time. Faulty as was this 
type of play, it introduced to France a form which was very dif- 
ferent from the mystery and the morality. Stoa admitted that 
he did not introduce into his text the rhetorical descriptions 
which are the ornaments of tragedy; but, by this very admis- 
sion, he indicated the road which dramatic art was to travel, 
where the action was to be lost from view in flowery by-paths 
and in a wilderness of sententious morality. 

Barthelemy de Loches, perhaps a disciple of Stoa, continued 
this form of drama with his Christus X ylonicus, trageedia (1529). 
This play, in four acts instead of the classical five, opens with 
a monologue of Christ which forms the first act. ‘The third 
act deals with the Passion. The fourth represents Joseph of 
Arimathea and Nicodemus preparing for the entombment of 
Christ. The action passes in several localities, as in medieval 
drama. 

These humanistic plays, medieval in subject, tragic from the 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 345 


point of view of the outcome, show, at the same time, the influ- 
ence of Latin comedy. Terence especially was admired as a 
dramatist and moral philosopher. Comedy developed sooner 
and more artistically in the Renaissance than did tragedy. It 
could and perhaps did furnish the idea of both prologue and 
epilogue, although medieval drama seems to have introduced the 
prologue independently of classical comedy. ‘The introduction 
of sententious maxims was also the result of the practice of 
Terence, although the later critics of the Renaissance will ascribe 
this practice to the influence of Seneca alone. The five-act divi- 
sion of the action into exposition, unfolding of the action, intro- 
duction of obstacles, means of overcoming obstacles, dénouement, 
was also introduced from comedy. Perhaps the rascals, Sanga, 
Sannio, Dromo in Christus Xylonicus were borrowed from medi- 
eval drama; but their names recall classical comedy. One thing 
is certain: pure classical tragedy was still contaminated by 
medieval and comic elements. 

At Bordeaux, in the college of Guyenne, Latin humanistic 
tragedy reached its most artistic development. Buchanan trans-, 
lated Medea and Alcestis ; he also wrote Saint John The Baptist 
and Jephtha, and produced them all on the stage between 1539 
and 1545. About 1546, Muretus’ original play Julius Cesar, 
was played on the same stage. 

As was the case in the development of Italian tragedy, the 
Greek influence operated at a period before Seneca became the 
accepted model; and, from our acquaintance with the later trage- 
dies built upon the model of Latin tragedy, we may pronounce 
it regrettable that the purer form of Greek art was not able 
to hold its own against the view of the critics that Seneca was 
the dramatist to be imitated. 

Buchanan’s two original plays have much of the Greek form. 
The point of attack is far enough from the dénouement to allow 
a development of the situation. It is true that much of the 
dialogue of his Saint John The Baptist is oratorical debate after 
the manner of Euripides; the scene of the dance of Salome and 
the death of John are off the stage; but the recital of the death 


346 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


is refreshingly restrained and dignified in comparison to what 
it would have been in an Italian tragedy of this period. There 
is no degenerate horror, no erotic detail, no display of the sev- 
ered head in the manner of a Speroni, or indeed, of an Oscar 
Wilde. The medieval drama would have represented the dance 
and the execution; but the humanistic drama aims to discuss a 
situation and moralize upon it in an ornamental style. Therein 
lay the novelty. Dramatists had not yet learned to represent 
an event and to bring out all the finer shades of the situation. 
Another novelty in this neo-classical tragedy was the unhappy 
ending, the death of the hero, without even his ascent into Heaven, 
which had so mitigated the tragic element in the miracle and 
morality plays. 
Buchanan’s later play, Jephtha, follows much more closely the 
technique of Greek tragedy, especially [phigenia in Aulis and 
Hecuba. The dramatist, for he has the right to that appellation, 
, says in his autobiography that he wrote these plays to win over 
the youth of his time from the allegorical plays of the Middle 
Ages to the imitation of the ancients. Had he written them in 
French instead of Latin and had they been printed and circu- 
lated before instead of after Jodelle’s Cléopdtre, they might have 
made French tragedy of the Renaissance an art more worthy of 
the name. His Jephtha is a play constructed along Greek lines, 
with a dramatic problem which develops in rapid action carried 
on by principal characters, with the exception of the usual 
messenger. It has none of the chaotic, loose construction of the 
medieval morality and none of the faults of Senecan tragedy. 
After the manner of Euripides, a divine personage—in this 
case naturally an angel—announces the subject of the play in a 
prologue. It is the story of Jephtha’s daughter taken from the 
short account in Judges, which Buchanan has not merely turned 
into action and dialogue by servilely following his source as did 
medieval playwrights, but which he has really dramatized in a 
manner not entirely unworthy of a Greek playwright. The ex- 
position is given by Iphis, the daughter, and her mother. The 
classical dream is introduced for purposes of foreshadowing. A 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 347 


messenger announces the victory of Jephtha; and, in a scene of 
suspense delicately handled, Jephtha meets his daughter, and 
greets her with hesitancy and mysterious words foreboding 
tragedy. A priest, to whom he discloses his anguish, tries in 
vain to persuade him that the sacrifice of his daughter is not 
necessary. In a touching scene between the father and the 
daughter, with the mother present, the heroic Iphis learns what 
she must suffer. The messenger reports the fulfillment of the 
vow. ‘The situation is even more poignant than the analogous 
episodes in J/phigenia in Aulis, which undoubtedly inspired 
Buchanan to dramatize this tragic story. The characters do not 
compare so favorably with their Greek prototypes; but Jephtha 
is a play the like of which we shall not find in France for many 
years to come. 

The narrowing of the dramatic framework is exemplified in 
Muretus’ Latin tragedy Julius Cesar, written in emulation of 
Buchanan and played at Bordeaux about 1546. This short work 
of about 550 lines, of which 200 are assigned to the chorus, shows 
no influence of Greek tragedy and hence is much less artistic 
than Jephtha. The first act consists of a monologue delivered 
by Cesar, in which he boasts of his power and security in spite 
of warnings from the seer and in spite of his enemies. In the 
second act, Brutus announces his intention of freeing the Roman 
citizens from the tyrant; and he gains the support of Cassius 
for the deed of violence. The third act still carries on the expo- 
sition, as Calpurnia tells her nurse of her fears and presentiments. 
In the fourth act, Calpurnia persuades Cesar to remain at home; 
but, taunted by Brutus with being influenced by a woman’s 
dream, he decides to go to the senate. Brutus acts as messenger 
of the news of Czsar’s death in the fifth act. Instead of ending 
the play at this moment, Muretus brings Calpurnia on the stage 
lamenting the death of her husband. Cesar’s ghost appears and 
announces his reception into Olympus in a manner that recalls 
the ending of many a medieval play. With this exception, the 
tragedy is purely classical according to the narrow view of the 
Renaissance. There is little action, five acts, a chorus, a dream, 


348 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


a nurse, a reported death, a discussion of tyrannicide in lofty 
declamation, and a royal hero. The influence of Seneca may not 
be direct; but the classical elements are too numerous to deny 
an indirect influence. Italy, by this time, was producing classi- 
cal tragedy; and the relations between the two countries were 
so close that the educated Frenchman, especially, must have 
been acquainted with the new form of serious drama which was 
being produced beyond the Alps. In 1547, the architect Serlio 
published the fifth volume of his work on architecture and in- 
troduced to France the classical system of stage setting. 

Muretus forms the connection between Paris and the provincial 
towns where humanistic tragedy was in favor. After leaving 
Bordeaux he went to Poitiers, where Faveau was writing tragedies 
in imitation of Seneca; and in 1551 he arrived in Paris. Jodelle, 
one of his friends, and Grévin, one of his pupils, must have be- 
come familiar with his work. Thus it is not surprising to find 
Jodelle producing in 1552-1553 the first classical tragedy in 
French on a subject allied to Julius Cesar, namely Cléopdatre 
Captive ; nor is it surprising that Grévin wrote a Jules César in 
French. Du Bellay, in his Défense et Illustration de la Langue 
Francaise (1549), had suggested to the classical scholars that 
they would know where to find models for tragedy and comedy 
if the rulers were willing to restore them to their ancient dignity. 
Henri II had shown himself thus inclined in 1548 by attending a 
representation of Calandria at Lyon. Ronsard’s translation of 
Plutus had been played at the college of Coqueret in the same 
year. The way was open for classical tragedy. Jodelle may 
have known where to find the best models, but unfortunately he 
did not follow Greek tragedy as had Buchanan. His Cléopétre 
is rather an imitation of the method of Muretus. He fell into 
the common mistake of neo-classicists who found their whole 
theory of art on imitation of the ancients but who are content 
to imitate the imitators of the ancients. 

Cléopdtre is really an elegy in monologue and dialogue. The 
action—if we may call lamentation by this name—begins after 
the death of Marc Antony, whose ghost opens the play with a 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 349 


monologue in Senecan fashion. Here is found the first reference 
to the unity of time in France, for we are told that Cleopatra 
will die before sunset. The point of attack is about as late in 
the story as possible, and the whole play would scarcely furnish 
material for a last act of a Shakespearean tragedy. Jodelle’s aim 
was not to produce a dramatic action which develops, but to 
discourse upon the misfortunes of a queen. 

The next scene introduces Cleopatra and her servants. She 
has seen the vision of Antony’s ghost, and the canonical dream 
is thus preserved. In the second act, Octavian discusses with 
two confidants what he shall do with Antony’s betrayer. The 
next act, it is true, contains a bit of action, but it is more comic 
than tragic. Cleopatra, trying in vain to persuade Octavian not 
to take her to Rome as a captive, flies into a rage and soundly 
slaps Seleucus, who suggests that Octavian might possess her. 
The fourth act shows her lamenting at the tomb of Antony; 
and the usual messengering of her death occupies the short fifth 
act. The chorus takes up more than half of the play. 

This tenuous tragedy, performed before the court, was hailed 
as a masterpiece of a new form of dramatic art. No greater 
contrast can be found in two contemporaneous forms of drama 
than that existing between the sprawling mysteries of epic length 
where every event was enacted, and the narrow neo-classical 
tragedy where action of any sort is scarcely visible. 

Yet it was a tragedy, a play in which a sympathetic character 
met death unrelieved by an ascent into Heaven. The audience 
left the performance with a new sensation of tragic emotion. 
However cold the play may seem to us, we must remember that 
it furnished a new dramatic experience for the courtly audience 
which was weary of medieval drama. This fact is enough to 
explain the success of the tragedy of Cléopdtre. 

One of the actors in Jodelle’s double bill of tragedy and comedy 
was Jean de La Péruse. Inspired by the success of the plays 
which he had helped to produce, La Péruse almost immediately 
set himself the task of writing a tragedy on which Sainte Marthe 
put the finishing touches after the death of the author in 1554. 


350 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The play was published in 1555; and, while overpraised by the 
scholarly coterie, the tragedy is an improvement on Jodelle’s 
work. This is due, in part, to the fact that La Péruse chose 
the subject of Medea and did not hesitate to draw freely from 
Seneca and, somewhat less, from Euripides. The play, generally 
spoken of as a translation, is in reality an adaptation of Seneca’s 
tragedy. The scenes of the original are presented by La Péruse 
in quite a different order; but nothing is gained by this re- 
arrangement. The play has none of the delicately balanced 
action of Euripides’ tragedy, and La Péruse is much more 
clumsy in handling the psychology than both Seneca and Euripi- 
des. Yet in comparison with Jodelle’s play, Médée is actually 
dramatic. The heroine plans and carries out her deed of vio- 
lence. As in Seneca, the children are slain on the stage in direct 
contravention of Horace’s precept that Medea must not kill 
the children before the eyes of the audience. While the point 
of attack in Cléopdtre was at ‘the end of affairs,” here the action 
~ leaps in medias res. The exposition is carried by the queen and 
her nurse in accordance with the ideas of Donatus. The role 
of the messenger, however, in this and other French tragedies of 
this period, is not nearly so important as it is in ancient tragedy 
and in Italian plays. Seneca and the Italians worked up the 
story to a narration of horror and emphasized thereby the terrible 
deed of violence. The French emphasized the elegiac lamenta- 
tion of the heroine because of the tragic situation. The death 
is more of a dénouement than a climax in early French tragedy. 
True dramatic action, the swinging of the pendulum of suspense 
toward hope and fear alternately, are conspicuously absent in 
both cases. On the other hand, Mellin de Saint Gelais in his 
Sophonisbe (1556)—a free translation of Trissino’s tragedy— 
has the death of the queen narrated, although it occurred on the 
stage in the original. The narration, however, is rather a pathetic 
lamentation than an accumulation of horror. This change in 
this play is evidence of the fact that Horace’s dictum in regard 
to deaths in tragedy was being more and more accepted as a 
valid rule. 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 351 


Whatever merit Médée possesses is due entirely to its sources. 
Just as Seneca’s Medea is more dramatic than it otherwise would 
have been because it is founded on Euripides’ play, so La 
Péruse’s tragedy has more dramatic action than Cléopdtre be- 
cause it is adapted from Seneca. The real ineptitude of the play- 
wrights of this early period is entirely apparent when they at- 
tempt to dramatize a story without following some classical 
play. 

Grévin is the first of the French writers of tragedy to show 
signs of dramatic ability. His Jules César, inspired by Muretus’ 
play, is unmistakable evidence that he was unable to avoid 
Muretus’ exposition by a monologue, but he prepares for a new 
scene in the last act in which Antony arouses the soldiers to 
vengeance. Of course, in comparison to Shakespeare’s mas- 
terful handling of this situation, Grévin’s scene pales into in- 
significance; but the existence of the scene shows that Grévin 
was alive to the possibility of making tragedy something more 
than an elegy. He also saw that the death of Cesar is not 
merely a deed to be recounted and an event to cause Calpurnia 
to lament. Thus he places it in the fourth act of his play, 
whereas Muretus had used this material for his fifth act. 
Grévin’s tragedy gains immeasurably in dramatic interest in 
comparison with Muretus’ attempt. Grévin, rather than Jo- 
delle, is the real founder of French classical tragedy, for he 
actually introduced a dramatic action. 

Also his handling of the chorus, which, instead of being mere 
singers of moralizing commonplaces, is formed of Roman sol- 
diers interested in the plot, gives evidence of dramatic instinct. 
He dared to introduce a novelty instead of following, in pious 
stupidity, worn-out customs of ancient drama which had lost 
their artistic significance. This is the first covert attack on the 
role of the chorus, which was thought to be so important but 
had become a lifeless literary excrescence, valueless in neo- 
classical tragedy for even pictorial effect. 

Naturally, this new form of drama developed along two or 
three different lines. The playwrights were not yet in accord 


352 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


as to just what they wished to produce. Even the influence of 
medieval technique had not ceased to operate, especially in plays 
in which the plot is drawn from the Bible. In 1550, Théodore de 
Béze had written the Sacrifice d’Abraham and had bestowed 
upon his play the appellation “tragedy.” The piece is more 
medieval than classic. There is a good deal of action on the 
stage and the outcome is the happy ending of medieval drama. 
Desmasures’ trilogy, David Combattant, David Fugitif, David 
Triomphant (1556) is also constructed on the framework of 
medieval drama although the author calls them, somewhat re- 
luctantly, tragédies saintes. They only conform to the spirit 
of tragedy in the style of the dialogue, and in the fact that the 
action of each separate play observes the unity of time. The 
unity of place, however, gives way to a necessary multiple stage 
setting. 

Two distinctly opposite tendencies are illustrated in Rouillet’s 
Philanire (published in Latin in 1563, translated into French 
in 1577), and Filleul’s Lucréce (played in 1566). .Philanire is 
founded on the same situation as Shakespeare’s Measure for 
Measure and Cinthio’s Epitia. In the first act, Philanire, hav- 
ing lamented, first in a monologue and then in the presence of 
her servants, the imprisonment of her husband, kneels before 
the provost, Sévere, and pleads for the release of her husband. 
Sévére agrees to show clemency provided Philanire will give 
herself to him. The second act opens with a wholly unclassical 
scene between Philanire and her children, one of whom is beg- 
ging for a hobby-horse. The mother, overcome with pity for 
them, decides to plead with Sévére once more; and she finally 
gives in to his demands. In the third act, which occurs the 
next day, Philanire, bowed with shame, demands of Sévére that 
he fulfill his part of the terrible bargain. He does so by bring- 
ing on the stage her beheaded husband; and the lamentations 
of Philanire and the chorus are prolonged to a length, both bore- 
some and disgusting. The story continues to develop, however, 
for in the next act the marriage of Philanire to Sévére is ordered 
by the governor and is consummated. In the fifth act the second 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE — 353 


husband is beheaded at the command of the governor, and 
Philanire comes on the stage to weep for her two husbands and 
to hint at suicide. 

The plot, showing unmistakable evidence of Italian influence, 
is scarcely to be commended; but the action is well handled. 
The point of attack is correctly placed in order to allow the story 
to develop. The action is carried by principal characters on 
the stage in obligatory scenes. At the end of each act, the 
interest of the spectator is held in suspense as to what will 
happen. In spite of the grossness of the play with the tragic 
situation bordering on the burlesque, there is a distinct touch of 
pathos. The scene with the children, which motivates Philanire’s 
surrender, is a relief in comparison to the motives of vengeance 
which dominate so often the characters of Renaissance tragedy. 
This broader framework, however, was not adopted by writers 
of tragedy. We shall find it only in tragi-comedies or serious 
plays with a happy ending. 

The other tendency to narrow the scope of the action and 
to keep it either off the stage, or between the acts, appears 
plainly in Filleul’s Lucréce. In the first act, Tarquin tells of 
his love for Lucretia. Act II. She bewails her dishonor. Act 
III. Collatinus and Brutus arrive. Act IV. They desire to 
avenge the wrong. Act V. After Lucretia commits suicide off 
the stage, they take an oath to avenge her. 

The taste for oratory and narrative, and the importance at- 
tributed to the role of the messenger are illustrated also in Guer- 
sens’ Panthée (1571). In the fourth act, Panthée kills herself 
on the stage, contrary to the usual practice, but in the fifth act 
the deed is recounted first by the chorus and then by a messen- 
ger, who, so far as can be judged by the text, was not present 
in the preceding act when the suicide took place. 

Had Scaliger’s narrow conception of tragedy prevailed, such 
plays as Filleul’s Lucréce would have become the model; but, as 
is generally the case with dramatic critics, Scaliger’s theories 
were out of date when they appeared in 1561. Through the 
critical and dramatic work of Jean de La Taille and of Garnier, 


354 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


a middle ground between purely oratorical tragedy and such 
plays as Philanire was reached. 

Jean de La Taille published in 1572 his Art de la Tragédie 
which sums up the prevailing ideas of dramatic technique. The 
subject of tragedies, he says, deals with the pitiful downfall of 
lords, inconstancy of fortune, banishments, wars, plagues, 
famines, captivities and execrable cruelties of tyrants. A fitting 
subject would be a father who, unwittingly, ate his own sons; 
or one who finding no executioner to put an end to his own 
ills would resort to his own hands. He warns the playwright 
not to have anything done on the stage which cannot be done 
suitably and decorously. Hence violent deaths are inadmissible 
for everyone would see that such things are nothing but pre- 
tense. Thus he takes into consideration not only theoretical 
decorum, but also the difficulty of making such actions seem > 
artistic. This betrays at least the correct attitude of mind for 
a playwright. 

Owing to this theory and practice, tragedy of the Renaissance, 
as Professor Lanson points out, becomes a pathetic drama which 
draws emotion, not from the direct view of the tragic deed, but 
from the lamentations of its victims. The hero is the one who 
suffers, not the one who acts and struggles against adverse for- 
tune. The playwright did not aim to show what caused the 
tragic situation or to represent the tragic deed. He forged no 
unbreakable chain of cause and effect leading to an inevitable 
dénouement. The situation and deeds were dramatic and tragic 
in so far as they furnished cause for lamentation. 

For this reason, Jean de La Taille places the point of attack 
as close as possible to the end of the story. He says that one 
should not begin to relate the tragedy with the beginning of the 
story or the subject, but towards the middle or the end. This po- 
sition of the point of attack, closer to the dénouement than even 
Horace would have it, forces the oratorical, narrative element to 
take full possession of the stage. Tragedy of the Renaissance 
corresponds in this respect to the early Greek tragedies. 

A further result of this late beginning of the play is to pre- 


. 
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> 
4 
x 
ee 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE — 355 


clude the calm or happy opening of tragedy, cited by the an- 
cient critics and accepted by Renaissance critics as a rule of 
dramatic art. This is considered by La Taille as not always 
necessary. He does insist on the value of the peripeteia and 
holds that the spectators ought to see joy turned suddenly to 
grief and vice versa; but he does not realize, apparently, that 
his system of constructing tragedies makes such desirable de- 
velopments in the plot practically impossible. By the time 
the play opens, as is the case in his own tragedies, the hero is 
so close to his doom that nothing but the gloomy part of the 
story remains. 

He explains the chorus as an assemblage of men and women 
who, at the end of each act, discourse upon what has been 
said and explain what is supposed to happen behind the scenes. 
According to the accepted theory, there should be five acts, and 
an empty stage marks the ending of an act. Thus he estab- 
lishes the rule of the linking of scenes found in Donatus, which 
requires that, except at the end of an act, a character remain 
upon the stage. This rule, however, was not strictly observed 
by the French dramatists until the seventeenth century. 

The rule of the unity of time had been generally observed by 
French tragic playwrights from the time of Jodelle, and the 
lines of the play called attention of the spectators to the fact 
that the action took place in one day. The unity of place was 
implied by Scaliger in 1561. Castelvetro in Italy had given 
full expression to it in 1570; and now, in 1572, Jean de La Taille 
says succinctly of these two rules: “The story or play must be, 
represented in one day, one time, and one place.” 

The ancient system of stage decoration, as reconstructed by 
Vitruvius and by Serlio in their treatises on architecture, was 
known to the French. The very indefiniteness of a scene of 
palaces in perspective served as a fitting background which did 
not call attention too plainly to the actual location of the action. 
Such a setting made it easy to observe the unity of place. 
Tragedy dealt with royal personages and only needed regal 
columns and arches as a background. It made little difference 


356 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


whether the scene was actually within or without the palace. 
Atmosphere was all that was necessary, and Serlio’s scenery fur- 
nished the correct emotional surroundings without insisting too 
much on reality. The spectator was probably never troubled by 
the indefiniteness or confusion of places, which the modern critic 
can point out in certain plays of the period. He accepted an 
indefinite place because of the indefinite setting. We moderns 
have learned that a stage hung only with curtains is a fitting 
place for the representation of poetical drama in which the scene 
is simply “on the stage.” Old prints show that such “scenery” 
was employed on the stage of the Renaissance. 

Jean de La Taille’s plays, Sail, le Furieux (written in 1563, 
published in 1572) and La Famine ou les Gabéonites (1573) 
correspond closely to his theories. In writing his Sail, le 
Furieux he made use of Seneca’s Mad Hercules and from the 
third act of Seneca’s Trojan Women he built up a part of the 
situation in La Famine ou les Gabéonites. The scene between 
the witch of Endor and Saul, in his first play, shows a dramatic 
instinct; and Saul is a more truly tragic hero than has been 
found in French tragedy up to this period. La Taille understood 
the theatre better than anyone of his time, but his time was 
against him. The art of tragedy was too young to bring forth 
a great playwright. Even though he showed flashes of dramatic 
ability, even though he understood the power of a well-con- 
structed plot with an action swinging between hope and fear, 
he had too much tradition without experimentation behind 
him to be able to handle his chosen form of drama with success. 

After Scaliger’s activity as a theorist, after La Taille’s theory 
and practice, the influence of Seneca naturally became dominant 
with Garnier. Whatever hesitation there had been between 
Greek or Latin tragedy as a model now disappears. The Italians 
had already chosen Seneca as their model. Greek tragedy be- 
came the source of only single scenes, as in Garnier’s Troade. 
Even Aristotle was interpreted according to Horace, the prac- 
tice of Seneca and of more modern playwrights. No one in the 
Renaissance had the slightest conception of the real meaning 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE = 357 


and deep significance of Aristotle’s discussion of the technique 
of tragedy. Nothing remained of his theories except statements 
which were misconstrued or misunderstood. 

Scévole de Sainte-Marthe says correctly of Garnier: “Since 
Seneca’s manner of writing seemed to Garnier more exact and 
more regular, he tried to imitate this excellent author and suc- 
ceeded perfectly.” His first play, Porcie (1568), is made up 
of scenes without any real continuity drawn from several of 
Seneca’s plays: Thyestes, Hippolytus, Mad Hercules, Hercules 
at Gita, The Trojan Women. The exposition is given by a Fury 
in imitation of Seneca’s Thyestes. The play consists of mono- 
logues, political discussions leading up to the narration of three 
deaths, and the death of the nurse on the stage, which Garnier 
added, as he says, ‘‘to make the catastrophe bloody.” Brutus, 
whose death leads to the death of Porcia, never appears on the 
stage. The nurse is evidently too minor a character to have 
oratory wasted upon her manner of demise, so she quietly stabs 
herself at the last line of the play. 

In Hippolyte (1573), modelled upon Seneca’s Hippolytus with 
ideas added from his Agamemnon and Medea, whatever faint 
gleams of drama are to be found can be explained as coming 
from Seneca, who in turn was indebted to Euripides’ first ver- 
sion of the story. It is the thin infiltration of dramatic scenes 
such as the confession of Pheedra of her love to Hippolytus, which 
saves these plays from being utterly ridiculous. 

His Cornélie (1574), founded upon Seneca’s Octavia, and his 
Marc Antoine (1578), which recalls the same play, both show 
a looseness of construction which results from attempting to 
use more material for the plot, but failing to combine the dif- 
ferent episodes into a whole. Cornélie continues for four acts 
of oratory and lamentation before one can guess what all the 
talk is about. At the end of the fourth act, the action seems 
to be moving, with the speed and temperature of a glacier, 
towards the death of Cesar; but, when the play is over, it is 
found that all the discursive exposition has been leading up to 
the climax of grief on the part of Cornelia, who has already wept 


358 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


for her husband, over the news of the death of her father. In 
comparison to Jodelle’s Cléopdtre, there is too much oppor- 
tunity for action in Garnier’s Marc Antoine, since the play- 
wright introduces three principals, Antony, Cleopatra and Oc- 
tavian whose interests really clash. With great care, however, 
Garnier keeps on the very outskirts of this potentially dramatic 
situation, and so constructs the play that none of the chief 
characters ever meet each other alive. 

One is struck by the repetition of two scenes in ‘sCaenien S 
plays. In one a conqueror, wishing to put an enemy to death, 
is opposed by a friend who pleads for a show of magnanimity. 
This type is illustrated in Les Juives, Cornélie and Marc An- 
toine. The other shows a confidant trying in vain to dissuade 
a person from committing suicide. These scenes are derived 
from Seneca and give opportunity for almost endless elegiac 
argument. Together with the description of deaths, they evi- 
dently form the obligatory scenes of Garnier’s plays. If a 
_ ghost of a Fury, or some principal in a monologue gives the ex- 
position and if these scenes are introduced, if the protagonists 
meet rarely or at all, we have a typical tragedy of this period. 
Garnier’s principals are even less active than La Taille’s heroes. 
When the play begins, they are so paralyzed by their misfortune 
that they can only weep, while secondary characters indulge in 
flowery oratory. ‘Tears may have a value all their own in arous- 
ing sympathy in real life; but they have not the same power 
on the stage unless they are tears which cause events to unfold. 

The process of adding material, which might have been used 
with dramatic effect by a more skilful hand, is carried so far 
in the Troade (1579) that the tendency towards an irregular 
form of drama, lacking a strict unity of action, is quite evident. 
Garnier points out in his argument preceding this play that the 
subject is taken in part from Hecuba and the Trojan Women of 
Euripides and from Seneca’s Trojan Women. In the juxtapo- 
sition of episodes taken from different plays, Garnier parallels 
the practice of writers of comedy of the period. In this tragedy, 
Hecuba gives the exposition and tells in horrible detail of the 


ee Sse ee 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE — 359 


death of Priam. Talthybius then announces the allotment of the 
women to their several conquerors. Cassandra prophesies the 
death of Agamemnon and is torn from her mother, who faints. 
Act II. Andromache, with Helen present, obeys the impulse 
of her dreams and hides the young Astyanax in a tomb. Ulysses 
enters, and in a scene following Seneca quite closely, the child 
is discovered and captured. Act III. Talthybius informs Hecuba 
that Achilles’ ghdst has announced that Polyxena must be put 
to death. The Greeks in council decide that the girl must die. 
Pyrrhus announces this decision to Hecuba, who begs for the 
life of her daughter, but Polyxena is led away. Act IV. A mes- 
senger relates the death of Astyanax to Hecuba and Andromache 
and spares no gruesome detail. Talthybius tells Hecuba of the 
death of Polyxena; and the chorus gives her another chance for 
lamentation by informing her of the discovery of the body of 
her son, Polydorus. 

Any one of these episodes would have furnished enough ma- 
terial for a tragedy constructed after the formula of Scaliger, 
or according to the practice of Jodelle or Garnier himself in his 
earlier method. Not content, however, with this series of epi- 
sodes, Garnier imagines that between the acts Hecuba has sum- 
moned Polymestor, the guardian and murderer of her son. He 
arrives at the beginning of the fifth act, and, when questioned 
by Hecuba, swears falsely that Polydorus is safe. She entices 
him into a tent and blinds him. When he comes forth, he 
confesses the murder of Polydorus. The play ends with a final 
outburst of grief from Hecuba. 

Two things are evident from this analysis. When Greek 
drama is imitated there is much more action on the stage car- 
ried on by the chief characters, although the purpose of the play- 
wright was only to imitate situations which led up to elegiac 
outbursts. Also, Garnier was trying to complicate the action, 
although he only succeeded in juxtaposing episodes in the story. 
Yet it is through just such experiments and clumsy attempts 
that playwrights learn finally to handle complicated situations 
successfully. While Garnier produced a play which is much 


360 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


more Senecan than Greek in its construction, the fact that he, 
the great admirer of the Latin philosopher, actually imitated 
certain scenes of Euripides in his attempt to improve French 
tragedy, is not to be overlooked. This is evidence that, how- 
ever Senecan the theory of tragedy had become, a playwright 
had discovered that Greek tragedy was a source of dramatic 
effects not to be neglected. A hundred years later, Racine suc- 
cessfully brought French classical tragedy to’ its most artistic 
point of development by following with a sure step the path 
where Garnier had stumbled, but had shown the way. 

Garnier’s Antigone (1580) is constructed in the same manner 
as the Troade. It is a mosaic of Euripides’ Phaenician Women, 
Seneca’s version of the same play and Sophocles’ Antigone. In 
order to give an appearance of unity of action to the different 
episodes, Garnier adds La Piété as a sub-title. Neither the 
unity of time nor place is preserved. (Edipus is weary of life 
and Antigone tries to console him. The scene changes to Thebes, 
and we find Jocasta deploring, in a dialogue with Antigone, the 
fratricidal war. Jocasta tries to bring her sons to reason, but 
in vain. The single long scene of the third act consists of the 
narrative of the brother’s death, the suicide of Jocasta behind 
the scenes, and the attempt of Hzemon to console Antigone in 
the style of the poets of the Renaissance. The first scene of 
the fourth act is taken from Sophocles’ Antigone, in which the 
two sisters discuss the question of burying Polynices. Creon 
forbids the burial. Antigone is brought before Creon and ac- 
cused of having buried the body. Hzmon reports his quarrel 
with his father, and Antigone bids farewell to life. In the fifth 
act, one messenger reports the death of Hemon and Antigone, and 
another messenger announces the death of Euridyce—making six 
deaths in all. The play ends with the usual lamentation on the 
part of Creon. Much of the play is in narrative form; but there 
is a wealth of plot material, even if it is clumsily handled. While 
one hesitates to compare Garnier to a Greek playwright, he re- 
minds one of Euripides in these plays in which he juxtaposes 
episodes in order to bring out the pathos of the situations. 


a ee a 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE 361 


After his Bradamante (1582), a tragi-comedy .n which he 
constructed a complicated plot, Garnier finally returns to a more 
regular form in Les Juives (1583). This play is built along 
well-known lines. A first act consists of a monologue, in which 
a prophet recounts the misfortunes of the Hebrews, and of a 
choral ode which enlarges upon the same idea. The action, 
as understood by the Renaissance playwrights, begins in the 
second act; and the second, third, and fourth acts consist of the 
usual scenes in which the principal and secondary characters 
plead in vain with a tyrant for clemency. The fifth act is a 
narrative of the blinding of Sédécie and the murder of his chil- 
dren and friends, together with the lamentation of Sédécie’s 
mother, Amital, and the chorus. There is no real action but 
merely a kind of peripeteia, when the tyrant, after pretending 
to be merciful, carries out his vengeance. This form of 
peripeteia is distinctly Senecan. Yet the play is an improve- 
ment over Garnier’s earlier tragedies. The situation is clear. 
The principals meet on the stage. Hence there is at least a 
unity of situation, lacking in Porcie and in Cornélie, although it 
is scarcely possible to speak of a unity of action in plays which 
do not aim to have the situation develop. 

Les Juives and La Taille’s Sail, le Furieux are the best ex- 
amples of French tragedy of the Renaissance. With all their 
faults they fulfill the ideal of tragedy as it existed at that time. 
If the material they employ for five acts could have been used 
for the fourth and fifth acts alone, and had the principals been 
given an opportunity to act, instead of merely to suffer and 
lament, a difficult but yet artistic form of drama could have 
been produced. Unfortunately, for the next twenty years, 
tragedy made no advance in technique. The interest of a dra- 
matic conflict and of a real plot was undiscovered. The hero 
remained the one who suffered. Any germ of a conflict, or 
any active hero that can be found, is to be explained as a faint 
echo from Greek tragedy, not as voluntarily and purposely in- 
troduced by the author for artistic reasons. | 

‘During the period from 1580 to 1600 the new form of tragedy 


362 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


was acted before more popular audiences. It became less of 
a purely scholastic and courtly entertainment. Garnier’s influ- 
ence remained and the rhetorical narrative element prevailed in 
the long run. Yet the classical rules prescribing five acts, the 
unities of time and place, and the choruses are sometimes aban- 
doned. The technique of the medieval drama did not die with- 
out a struggle and the popular audience was still too accustomed 
to the freer form of drama, in which there were events on the 
stage, to accept this narrative dialogue and monologue of Renais- 
sance tragedy immediately. Thus in Beaubreuil’s Régulus, even 
the battles are enacted, and the unity of time is not observed. 
Laudun, in his Horace (1596), stages the combat of the six 
champions, and Horace kills his sister in plain view of the audi- 
ence. These defections from the camp of the classicists are to 
be explained by the influence of popular taste and of popular 
drama. Although instances of the deformation of classical pro- 
cedure as exemplified in Garnier’s Les Juives could be multiplied, 
the art of dramatic technique was at a standstill. The irregu- 
larities remained simply irregularities. These experiments did 
not bring forth any needed reforms in the construction of tragedy, 
such as the introduction of a real problem developing through 
dramatic action. At most, they kept the art of tragedy in a 
somewhat indefinite, fluid state; but no one was able to profit 
by this fluidity and mould a better form of drama. 

Laudun set forth the ideals of irregular classical tragedy of 
this period in his Art Poétique (1597). Tragedy, he says, should 
contain five acts and the chorus should appear at the close of 
each act, with the exception of the fifth. It should not appear 
during the acts, as in Garnier’s plays. The first act contains the 
lamentations; the second, the suspicions; the third, the councils; 
the fourth, the threats and preparations; the fifth, the executions 
and the shedding of blood. This formula is derived from 
Viperanis, and Laudun admits that the French do not follow 
it exactly. - 

The materials for tragedy are commands for kings, battles, 
murders, exiles, violation of women, betrayals, tears, cries, etc. 


~~ * 


ee 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE RENAISSANCE — 363 


The characters are kings and princes; only if the plot requires 
it, is a man of low estate introduced. Laudun interprets Hor- 
ace’s rule that only three actors should speak at once, as having 
been formulated for the sake of the dignity of tragedy; but he 
insists that as many characters should appear as are necessary. 
Thus there might be a council of six or seven. 

Ghosts, he holds, should appear only before the play begins, 
evidently as a prologue. Allegorical or divine characters should 
appear only in the prologue to tell what is going to happen, 
in order that the spectators may be attentive, or to explain the 
moral purpose of the play. 

Laudun realized that tragedy was lacking in action, or at 
least, in events. Therefore, he was unwilling to accept the uni- 
ties of time and place because their observance would deprive 
tragedy of so much material that it would lack charm. He 
considered that the rule of placing horrible events behind the 
scenes was due to the fact that many actions, such as dismem- 
bering a man, are impossible on the stage. He points out that 
half the tragedy is played behind the scenes, because that is 
where executions take place. It was natural, therefore, for him 
to have more action on the stage in his own plays. 

Thus the theorists were keeping pace with the dramatists 
in the production of a somewhat irregular classical drama with 
a tendency toward more action. At the same time, the imita- 
tion of the narrower, so-called regular form, with entire emphasis 
on narration and sententious dialogue, was still being produced 
by such writers as Montchrétien, who follows in the footsteps 
of Garnier. His plays differ from those of his predecessor only 
in the fact that they are even more bare of events. Unity of 
action is very narrow. He never combines episodes, but treats 
one situation, after the manner of Garnier in Les Juives. How- 
ever, it was at this time, the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
that Hardy began to write the tragedies played at the regular 
theatre in Paris, the Hétel de Bourgogne. 

Although many of these scholarly and literary tragedies had 
been represented in colleges, at the court, and later by profes- 


364 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


sional actors, their authors were not professional playwrights. 
These plays, although composed with a view to production, 
were not written under normal theatrical conditions, in which 
a playwright is paid to produce something which must be en- 
joyed by a regular theatrical audience in order to be a success. 
In the first two or three years of the seventeenth century, Alex- 
andre Hardy became the dramatist whose reputation and reward 
depended upon his ability to interest the normal audience of the 
Hotel de Bourgogne. Unlike his learned predecessors in the 
art of writing tragedy, he could not be content with the applause 
and verbal and written commendation of intellectual friends. 
His plays had to get over the footlights to an audience which 
had paid an admission fee. The frequenters of this theatre were 
accustomed to the medieval system of dramatic technique and 
all that it implies in regard to the play and its mounting. On 
the other hand, Hardy had classical leanings, and was in sym- 
pathy with the new movements in dramatic art. Behind him 
were the rhetorical tragedies of Garnier, and also the more or 
less irregular plays. Before him was a medieval theatre where 
events, not rhetorical tirades, held the stage. By profession a 
playwright, he was the first Frenchman to realize that, while 
playwriting had been raised to a literary art, drama is an art 
which cannot be successful if the literary element is not subor- 
dinate, when necessary, to plot and action. 

His tragedies can scarcely be called reactions against Garnier’s 
technique, and against the irregular plays of which Laudun de- 
scribes the construction, or even against medieval drama. To the 
best of his ability, he drew from these forms of drama whatever 
he found in them effective on the stage before his audience. 
He was not a man bound by a theoretical system. He retained 
the five acts, the Alexandrine line, the messengers, the ghosts in 
the first act. He portrayed suffering, vengeance and horror, ex- 
pressed in lofty language. However, he finally banished the 
chorus as unreal and undramatic. He did not observe the uni- 
ties of time and place unless he could do so without omitting 
any scene which he believed to be dramatic. He realized that 


HARDY 365 


his audience, accustomed to the portrayal of events in medieval 
plays, desired to have incidents, which Horace would relegate 
behind the scenes, enacted before their eyes. He did not fail 
to, place such episodes on the stage. As a result, the rdle of 
the messenger and the rhetorical element, though still existing, 
lost materially in importance. The lines ceased to be merely a 
means of describing events and emotions. They became the 
means of developing the action. What is said in his plays is 
directly connected with what is being done. Action and dia- 
logue go hand in hand to the end. 

His point of attack is far enough back in the story so that 
his characters go through different emotions and so that the 
events calling forth these emotions happen within the play itself. 
There are hopes and fears, not merely two hours of impending, 
inescapable doom. Therefore, he was able to open his plays 
with a peaceful scene, and to represent the progression of emo- 
tions which had been lacking in earlier tragedies in France. In 
order to accomplish this advance towards a real plot, Hardy did 
not observe the unities of time and place when it was necessary 
to disregard them for the sake of his situation. He placed his 
scenes where he wished, because he was able to use the multiple 
system of stage decoration still in vogue in the theatre at Paris. 
The sets of five or six scenes represented places definitely, 
though summarily. Yet the definiteness of the separate scenes 
lent a clearness to his action in comparison to the vagueness 
shed over regular classical tragedy by the indefinite setting in- 
troduced by Serlio. The spectators of Hardy’s plays knew where 
the event was taking place. Hence events are much more im- 
portant in his plays than they are in Garnier’s. In comparison 
to the plays of Corneille and Racine, it cannot be said that 
Hardy introduced a plot which develops logically to the end; 
but he did select the dramatic moments in his story and put 
them on the stage. He left out few obligatory scenes although 
in his Ariadne, lapsing into the usual practice of the earlier 
French dramatists, he fails to have Ariadne and Phedra meet 
on the stage. Liberty in regard to the unity of place and time 


366 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


are not enough to enable a dramatist to produce a dramatic 
action which develops through its different phases to an end, 
nor will many events in a play constitute a plot. To produce 
dramatic action, events and characters must mutually react upon 
each other. The event must result in a certain clearly defined 
psychological reaction, or else the mental state of the personages 
must cause the event. One or both of these phenomena must 
be taking place throughout a play. Renaissance tragedy in 
Italy portrayed the ghastly horrors resulting in an event. In 
France, tragedy had portrayed the tears and sorrow resulting 
from an event. Such is the aim of Jodelle’s Cléopdire and his 
Didon. Hardy, however, shows us A‘neas making his decision 
to leave Dido. He realized that there are generally two char- 
acters concerned in the events of drama. Instead of making 
these characters avoid each other, he put them face to face. 
He failed, however, to make them develop psychologically in 
relation to what is happening around them. The gamut of 
their emotions is very limited. No fine shades of feeling sud- 
denly cause an action to develop surprisingly yet logically. His 
people are at the end too much what they were at the begin- 
ning. He has no Old Horace who rises to unheard-of heights 
of austere patriotism; no Othello, vulnerable in his love at 
the beginning, who sinks to tragic depths of jealousy at the 
end; no Phedra, whose passion grows with the situation un- 
til it brings the downfall of all who are within reach of its 
uncontrollable fire. Able to represent dramatic moments, able 
to tell a story on the stage, Hardy could not construct a dramatic 
action on the stage and sustain it to the end. Garnier por- 
trayed the emotional result of an event. Hardy portrayed the 
event and its emotional result. Tragedy of the highest form 
portrays the whole psychology of the hero as it develops from, 
_ or causes, each event. 

Thus the influence of the unities of time and place on the de- 
velopment of a plot is not very important. The construction 
of his Marianne and Didon, in which the unity of time is ob- 
served, is not fundamentally different from that of Coriolan in 


HARDY 367 


which the events are spread over one year. The fact that the 
scene in Didon changes from Carthage to the country ruled by 
Iarbas, does not alter the fact that the events in the play deal 
with a single crisis in the life of the hero and heroine. Except 
in Timoclée and Méléagre, Hardy observed the strict rule of 
the unity of action. He observed them better than did many of 
his predecessors whose plays open a few hours before the dénoue- 
ment and retain only a single scene of the action. To Hardy 
belongs the credit for having learned how to observe a strict 
unity of action dealing with one crisis while not observing unity — 
of time and place. Victor Hugo could not do so much in many 
of his plays, notably Hernani, although he aimed at this very 
ideal. Hardy could not handle characters as Shakespeare could. 
He would not have constructed plots containing several crises 
as did Shakespeare. French playwrights were not forced to 
accept a strict unity of action because they accepted the unities 
of time and place. They accepted the unities of time and place 
because their observance was fairly easy under the strict rule 
of unity of action which French dramatists never seriously ques- 
tioned. The French mind thinks keenly and deeply rather than 
broadly. The acceptance of the unity of action being inev- 
itable, most of the other conventions of classical tragedy fol- 
lowed in its wake. 

The suppression of the chorus, especially when these tragedies 
were represented, gave more opportunity for the development of 
the situation. Writing for a public accustomed to see events on 
the stage, Hardy was able to vary the kind of scenes in his 
tragedies, and avoid the monotony of earlier tragedies in which 
the range of scenes was restricted to the prophecy of a ghost, 
pleas for clemency, narrations of deaths, battles, and lamenta- 
tions. Hardy understood the power of the appeal to the eye. 
Thus in his Didon, AAneas boards his boat and the boat sails 
away. ‘Then Dido enters and finds that the vessel no longer 
lies at anchor. In Scédase, the two maidens are seized by their 
ravishers, and murdered; their bodies are cast into a well, and 
later, are discovered. He does not hesitate to show his char- 


368 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


acters in agony. Alcméon undergoes the torture of the poisoned 
necklace. Deaths occur frequently on the stage, no matter how 
violent. At the same time, unwilling to give up entirely the 
narration of such incidents, in Coriolan and in Alcméon the 
death is messengered after having been enacted. The impor- 
tance attached to such narratives in classical tragedy is evident. 
The element of spectacle, an inheritance of medieval drama, 
was not cast aside as unworthy of dramatic art. In the 
Ravissement de Proserpine, the earth opens and amid the spout- 
ing flames Pluto seizes the object of his desires. The Gigan- 
tomachie depends upon a series of spectacular pictures for its 
interest. Probably the properties and scenery formerly used for 
the spectacular setting of Hell in the mysteries represented the 
flaming forges of A®tna. Such scenes are clear evidence of 
Hardy’s willingness to capture the eye as well as the ear. He 
employed theatrical effects and placed movement, if not pure 
dramatic action on his stage. Plays built in this manner are 
theatrically effective, if not dramatic. | 


With all these appeals to the eye, with all the variety of his ) 


settings, Hardy was still unable to arouse suspense as we un- 
derstand it today. He arouses curiosity. His heroes are in- 
teresting because they cali forth sympathy, not merely pity. 
They are much more active physically and mentally than are 
the tearful automatons of the sixteenth century. The rehabil- 
itation of the hero from the bloody villain of Italian tragedy 
into the man or woman worthy of respect had taken place; and 
Hardy was responsible for this welcome development. Yet his 
whole system of dramaturgy was not capable of arousing poignant 
suspense as to what will happen and how it will happen. One 
is simply curious as to when the impending doom will fall. 
Hardy lacked the ability to combine the interplay of psycho- 
logical reaction and events so as to arouse alternate hope and 
fear for a person who has won our sympathy. In spite of his 


power in selecting scenes and arranging them in an order which ~ 


tells the story effectively, his characters do not grow and develop 
with fine gradation. Questions of life and death are discussed ; 


HARDY 369 


but decisions are arrived at too suddenly. There is no cumula- 
tive effect of hope and fear to constitute suspense. Without 
cumulation there is merely curiosity. Jean de La Taille had 
recognized vaguely the value of suspense and had said in his 
Art de la Tragédie that the spectators must be held “open 
mouthed”; but how to extract the full value of suspense was as 
yet an unknown art. As Professor Petit de Julleville says: 
“The theatre of the Middle Ages was ignorant of the art of sur- 
prises, of unexpected dénouements, of interest long in suspense 
and cleverly sustained. It disdained the means of arousing emo- 
tion which the modern theatre has abused.” Classical tragedy of 
the Renaissance also disdained such peripeteias, although Greek 
tragedy employed them with great art. Thus to have introduced 
the element of curiosity, as Hardy does, marks an advance toward 
a goal reached by Corneille. 

Even after Bradamante, tragi-comedy was cultivated but little. 
Having been overshadowed by regular classical tragedy, it now 
seems to have had its place usurped by irregular tragedy, which 
was more and more representing events and bursting the narrow 
framework set up by the earlier dramatists. This movement 
was carried on by Hardy until the form of tragi-comedy was 
reached. Had no plays of this type been written in the pre- 
ceding century, tragi-comedy would have developed out of 
Hardy’s conception of what a tragedy must be to interest his 
audience. 

The importance of this development lies in the fact that the 
plot becomes the vital element in Hardy’s tragi-comedies. Ex- 
-ercising more liberty than in his tragedies, he produced a series 
of striking events which moved towards one goal. He drew his 
ideas from romances and novels; but he joined the different 
adventures of his characters, if not in an inevitable chain of 
cause and effect, at least in a manner which is effective on a 
stage. He failed once more to represent the entire cumulative 
effect of passions and emotions. Yet he showed the cumulative 
effect of events. As Professor Rigal says: “In our tragic play- 
wrights of the seventeenth century the action follows a straight 


370 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


line which is met from time to time by cross roads ;—in Garnier 
it is transported, from time to time, to different roads without 
any word to inform us of the reason for these displacements ;— 
in Hardy, finally, as frequently in Shakespeare, the action, like 
too large an army, divides into several corps and travels by 
several roads to a point where they reunite, where the corps are 
mingled, and where the march is finished.” 

Of course, Hardy is more classical than Shakespeare. He 
places his point of attack later in the story, after a part of the 
action has begun. Thus in Frégonde, he begins his play long 
after the lover of the virtuous wife has fallen a prey to her 
charms. He does not travel along by-paths of comedy, as does 
Shakespeare. But he fails where Shakespeare succeeded, not 
so much in character drawing as in not being able to handle 
events and characters in that strict interrelation which we de- 
mand of strict drama in which there is a plot. In Frégonde 
the interest lies in the psychology of the characters: a virtuous 
wife and an honorable husband, a lover who becomes honorable 
when he has saved the husband from bankruptcy. But Hardy 
insisted too much on events and not enough on the psychological 
reaction of the events on his characters. 

The play begins with the Marquis de Cotron begging Fré- 
gonde’s nurse to help him gain an interview with Frégonde. The 
nurse finally consents. The act closes with a short scene between 
the Marquis and a confidant, Count de Célane. The Count 
guesses from Cotron’s face that the unknown object of his love 
has softened her heart. The situation would have been more 
dramatic had Don Yvan been introduced instead of a confidant.’ 

Act II. The meeting between Frégonde and the Marquis, 
prepared for in the preceding act, takes place. Unfortunately, 
Hardy does not extract the full effect from the situation. 
Frégonde complains that she is besieged by the Marquis, but 
must keep her husband in ignorance of the fact that his friend 
is in love with her. The nurse begs her to allow the Marquis 
to speak to her. Frégonde realizes that the nurse has attempted 
to arrange the meeting and withdraws, after upbraiding both the 


q 
| 
| 


| ea eee 


HARDY 371 


nurse and the Marquis. One wishes she had allowed the Mar- 
quis to speak instead of showing her firmness in such a chaste 
manner; but Hardy prefers to impress his audience with the 
virtue of his heroine and thereby misses a scene which might 
have been most interesting psychologically. The next scene, 
however, is highly dramatic. Don Yvan informs his wife he is 
on the verge of bankruptcy. Only one friend remains to help 
him—the Marquis. Frégonde, without disclosing the situation, 
begs her husband, in vain, not to accept his aid. 

The third act opens with a scene between the Marquis and 
his confidant. The Marquis rejoices because, now that he has 
aided Don Yvan by an act of friendship, he is cured of his passion 
for Frégonde. The next scene shows Frégonde and her husband. 
They have gone to the country. She still regrets that her hus- 
band has accepted aid from the Marquis. He can see no reason 
for her objections to such a friend. She grows pale with fear 
when a page announces the arrival of some hunters, one of whom 
must be the Marquis. Having worked up to dramatic obligatory 
scenes of the meeting, Hardy suddenly shifts the scene to Cala- 
bria and introduces an army of Turks whose leader exhorts them 
to attack the Christians. This is a curious moment to introduce 
a scene of preparation for later events. The monologue of the 
nurse then informs us of the first interview between Frégonde 
and the Marquis and that their rdles are now reversed. The 
Marquis is calm and respectful, but her love shines through her 
modesty. Their meeting on the stage, in which they both dis- 


play their new feelings, is short in comparison with what the 


scene would be in a modern play; and the nurse should not have 
narrated what one is about to behold. Yet it is an obligatory 
scene depending on the psychology of the principal characters, 
rather than on events. It would have been more dramatic had 
the Marquis not suffered a change of heart; or if we had not been 
informed of his new attitude, and could see his character de- 
velop. But in drama of this period, the characters develop sud- 
denly, and the psychological action often develops between the 
acts as physical action did in Renaissance tragedy, The strug- 


372 . THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


gle of souls has yet to be dramatized. Hardy can only vaguely 
point the way to attain this goal. 

At the end of the third act, the Marquis departs. In the 
next act, the King offers the Marquis the governorship of Cala- 
bria. The Marquis requests that the office be given to his friend. 
Don Yvan accepts. A messenger announces that the province 
has been attacked by the Turks. A scene in which Frégonde talks 
with her nurse emphasizes her love for the Marquis; and, on 
learning that she must accompany her husband to Calabria, she 
expresses her regret at leaving Naples. 

In the fifth act, Hardy successfully avoids the difficulty of 
working out his situation psychologically. Indeed, since the 
middle of the third act he has been preparing his dénouement 
with a care almost wholly lacking in the plays of his predecessors. 
His skill in foreshadowing and preparation is striking, although 
one regrets that he ends the play by events, rather than by solv- 
ing the problem he has raised. The shade of Don Yvan, killed 
by the Turks, appears to Frégonde and bids her marry the Mar- 
quis, whose love for her, we learn from the scene between him 
and his confidant, still lives. The King grants his request to 
marry her. 

In spite of its faults, this play reveals the importance of tzagi- 
comedy in the future development of dramatic technique in 
France. Without destroying the unity of action, it represents 
a variety of scenes on the stage, each one of which serves a pur- 
pose beyond merely harrowing the feelings of the audience. The 
action is skilfully foreshadowed. Hardy keeps his audience 
looking forward and awaiting events, instead of looking back- 
ward and listening to lamentations. His characters develop, 
not always as we think they should and their development is 
sudden; but they are not paralyzed by their misfortunes. Many 
of these plays set up a problem. It is in the logical solution of 
the problem that his art breaks down. 


a at tea a LM NEARS ci illest 


Se NT ee ee an 


CHAPTER XIII 


FRENCH TRAGEDY OF THE SEVENTEENTH 
AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 


URING the last years of Hardy’s activities as a dramatist, 
from about 1625 on, in front of the stage a change took 
place that was to be of great significance in the development of 
drama. The audience began to contain ladies and gentlemen 
instead of only the middle and lower classes who had frequented 
the Hotel de Bourgogne and taken delight in the horse-play of 
the farce and the melodramatic coups de thédtre of tragi-comedy. 
The dramatist who wrote plays for production in the theatre 
became a man of distinction and his name appeared upon the 
playbills posted outside the door. The theatre became an im- 
portant adjunct to dramatic art for the educated classes, who 
had been contented with the printed page or with occasional 
productions at court to bring them in contact with the art. The 
pastoral, with its trappings of chivalric and courtly love, helped 
to create an atmosphere which ladies, at least if masked, could 
breathe without apparent blushes. They wished to see enacted 
the pastoral love stories which they had been reading in romances 
for so many years. Scholars, poets, statesmen—including Riche- 
lieu—men who were to form the French Academy, become play- 
wrights, critics, and spectators in a commercial theatre. Since 
these cultured spectators did not drive out the average citizen 
who brings to the playhouse a heart and mind unclouded by re- 
finement, an ideal theatrical audience was formed. Drama must 
be a popular art in every sense of the word, if it is to exist in 
its highest form. Each class of society must give up what apper- 
tains to it alone and must become fused into a collection of men 
and women who are willing to have deep emotions aroused. 
Over-refinement and under-refinement must compromise. Peo- 
373 


374 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


ple who shrink from human emotion, as both the high-brow and 
the low-brow may do, are out of place in a great national theatre. 
The former may be compared to the scholarly critics, who, as 
Gombauld said, ‘understand best the rules of the theatre and 
frequent it the least.” iid 

Hardy ceased writing plays about 1628. The years from that 
date until 1636 or 1637, when the Cid was produced, mark a 
period of production of many different kinds of plays. Not until 
almost exactly two centuries have rolled by, will dramatists in 
France find the stage so open to whatever form of drama they 
wish to write. The farce, comedy, pastoral, tragi-comedy, 
tragi-comedy-pastoral, classical tragedy—all were produced either 
at the Hotel de Bourgogne or at the new Théatre du Marais, 
where a new troupe of actors, which had come to Paris in 1629, 
was installed in 1635. Whether a play was regular or irregular 
in its observance of classical rules, whether it was a combina- 
tion of a prologue, a comedy and a tragedy such as Corneille’s 
Illusion Comique, whether it was a mixture of pastoral, tragi- 
comedy and tragedy, such as Théophile’s Pyrame et Thisbé, or 
a tragi-comedy with farcical scenes, such as Du Ryer’s Argénis 
et Poliarque, the play was produced, if the actors believed it 
would interest the audience. Because of the system of simul- 
taneous setting, together with the practice of withdrawing a kind 
of drop curtain to reveal a new scene, the dramatist was as free 
as he is today in his choice of scenes to be enacted. The plot 
could be simple to the point of almost complete disappearance, 
as in Les Visionnaires ; or, under the combined influence of tragi- 
comedy and the new influence of Spanish comedy, it could be 
extremely complex and contain remarkable events, romanesque 
adventures, scenes of magic, women disguised as men and vice 
versa, mistaken identities and all that goes to make up what we 
call melodrama. It was a question as to what direction the 
evolution of dramatic art was to take. The dramatists them- 
selves, Corneille especially, were regular and irregular by turns. 
Mairet re-imported the three unities from Italy and not only 
applied the unity of time strictly and the unity of place slightly 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 375 


less so in his Silvanire (1629), but also defended these principles 
in the preface to that play. Yet he disregarded the unities of 
time and place in his Galanteries du Duc d’Ossone (1632), and 
observed them both carefully in his Sophonisbe (1634). 

Scudéry, who was to criticize the Cid for its neglect to observe 
the unity of time with verisimilitude, did not himself follow the 
same rule in his Didon. He placed the point of attack at a 
time previous to Dido’s surrender to her love for Aneas. His 
third act is the place in the story where Hardy began his version. 
Thus even in 1636, tragedies on a classical subject might have 
a larger framework than at the beginning of the century or 
during the Renaissance. 

The actors and authors connected with the older troupe of 
the Hotel de Bourgogne, where plays not observing the unities 
had been given for thirty years after the discussion of the ques- 
tion abated, were less disposed to accept classical conventions. 
They did not wish to have their repertory disturbed. Those 
who wrote for the new troupe of Mondory at the Marais were 
inclined to give them more serious consideration. 

It was natural that the rule of the unities should be received 
unfavorably by the French theatre-goers of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. The men who were observing the principles were not 
dramatists of great skill. Their conception of a play was un- 
dramatic. By this time, however, after Hardy had shown skill 
in handling events, after the pastoral by treating love stories in 
an actable way, had prepared the way for the great lovers of 
tragedy, after dramatists had learned that principal characters 
‘in a play must meet in obligatory scenes, instead of telling their 
few emotions to confidants or in soliloquy, it was possible for 
dramatists to meet these fundamental requirements of drama and 
check the movement towards irregularity by observing the unities 
of time and place. Even in the years of freedom the French 
dramatists never produced a Life or a History or a Chronicle as 
did the English dramatists. Clearness, simplicity, regularity were 
too ingrained in the French genius, after the Renaissance, to 
allow the medieval tendency towards formlessness to persist in 


376 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


drama. Thus the complexity of the plot; which had grown up 
in tragi-comedy and in the pastoral, and which was fostered by 
the new influence of Spanish drama, was met by the desire for 
the simplicity and regularity manifested in the classical rules, 
especially those of the unities. 

In 1628, when the irregular tragi-comedy was still supreme, 
Ogier in a preface to Schelandre’s Tyr et Sidon, protested against 
the unities of time both for technical reasons and on the ground 
of verisimilitude. He pointed out that a variety of events is 
necessary to make the representation agreeable, but that the 
unity of time causes too many events to occur in a short space 
of time. He felt that this offended the judicious spectator and 
made the play seem mechanical, in that the characters seem held 
in readiness to appear like gods from a machine. For this 
reason he objected to the recognition scenes in which the per- 
sonages arrive as if by magic. Also, this manner of construc- 
tion makes certain events, which should be separated by a lapse 
of’ time, follow each other closely. The compression of events 
into twenty-four hours caused too much narration by messengers 
stationed at every corner of the stage to tell what has happened 
on preceding days and to explain the motives of the actions 
which take place on the stage. In almost every act these “gen- 
tlemen” entertain the audience with a long account of trouble- 
some intrigues, a practice which strains the listener’s patience. 
“Indeed,” he continues, putting his finger on the fault of French 
classical tragedy of the Renaissance, “it is very boring to have 
the same person always occupying the stage and it is more 
fitting for a good inn than for an excellent tragedy to see mes- 
sengers arriving constantly.” He gave the sound advice that 
in drama “tiresome discourses which recount the misfortunes of 
others must be avoided and the persons themselves must be put 
in action, while long narrations should be left to the historians.” 

There is much common sense in these views, and the criticism 
applies to the majority of French classical tragedies. The ex- 
position is very likely to be tiresome and difficult to follow. 
There is too much narration throughout the plays. If attention 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 377 


is called by the dramatist to the lapse of time, events follow 
each other with mechanical swiftness and there are too many 
which happen within twenty-four hours, or else there are too 
few to keep the interest aroused and to allow characters to de- 
velop under the bludgeonings of fate. 

Such arguments in favor of the unities as are based on respect 
for the ancients are—and were—of little weight in determining 
this question. The opinions for and against the acceptance of 
the rules were based primarily on the idea of vraisemblance, 
which in these discussions came to mean “likeness to reality.” 
The spectator was supposed to behold things as if they were 
actually happening at the moment, and of which the principal 
aim is ‘the pleasure of the imagination.” If the spectator, Mairet 
said, beholds events spreading over ten or twelve years, his 
“imagination will be diverted from the pleasure of the spectacle 
which he considers as in the present; and the imagination will 
have to work to understand how the same actor who, not long 
ago, was talking at Rome in the last scene of the first act, in 
the first scene of the second act is found in the city of Athens, 
or if you wish, in great Cairo; it is impossible for the imagina- 
tion not to grow cold, not to be surprised by a sudden change of 
scene and be extremely disgusted, if it must always run after 
its object from province to province and, almost in a second, 
cross mountains and traverse the seas with it.” 

One does not feel that it is impossible for the scene to have 
changed, but it is true that one must accustom oneself to the 
new surroundings, and frequent changes of scene tend to break 
the continuity of the impression of the whole play. No doubt 
that is what Mairet and others felt when they saw, for example, 
Du Ryer’s Clitophon (ca. 1628) with its many events and 
its complex stage setting calling for “a very superb temple... 
a prison in the form of a round tower ... a beautiful garden 

. a high mountain, on the mountain a tomb, a pillar, a pil- 
lory, a rustic altar and a rock where one can climb in view of the 
audience . . . beside the rock a cave, a sea, half of a ship... 
under the rock, a prison for two people.” Du Ryer, however. 


378 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


devised such spectacular effects purposely. He believed that the 
public wished to have its eyes charmed by the diversity and 
change of the scenes. (Preface to Lysandre et Caliste.) 

Chapelain based his arguments for the observance of the 
unities on the idea, which he called fundamental, “that imita- 
tions in all poems should be so perfect that no difference may 
appear between the thing imitated and that which imitates. .. .” 
Verisimilitude is necessary “for the sole purpose of removing 
from the spectators all occasions to reflect on what they are 
seeing and to doubt its reality.” 

The modern system of stage decoration, which sets scenes one 
after the other, is less likely to break down the impression of 
reality than the simultaneous system which placed on the stage, 
at the same time, localities which were known to be far separated 
geographically. It is easy to imagine a scene in Rome and then 
to imagine a scene in Athens following it; but, once the question 
of verisimilitude is raised, it is difficult for the spectator to 
admit that he can see Rome and Athens at one glance. It is 
difficult to accept such sudden changes of locality as Du Ryer 
allowed in Argénis et Poliarque in which the scene changes in 
the first act from Sicily to France and back to Sicily without a 
pause in the action. The question having been raised, there was 
nothing left for the defenders of this conception of verisimilitude 
but to admit that logically the scene should not change, and 
that the time of the action of the play should correspond exactly 
to the time of the representation. They did not hesitate to 
make this admission. But Chapelain expresses the opinion of 
his partizans by pointing out that less effort is required to 
imagine an action lasting twenty-four hours than lasting ten 
years. Also he says that “in the space of three hours as many 
things having happened as could reasonably happen in twenty- 
four, the mind easily believes, at least during the representation, 
that what has taken place has lasted about that length of time.” 
One is much in sympathy with these arguments if he recalls that 
in the third act of Du Ryer’s Arétaphile and in the fifth act of 
his Argénis et Poliarque events occur which require more than 


ne eg a a a 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 379 


twenty-four hours. The dramatists were abusing their liberty; 
and the reaction against such a procedure was natural, although 
the arguments in favor of reform were at times illogical in their — 
narrow logic and specious in their reliance upon a materialistic 
conception of realism. 

However, had Chapelain ever attempted to write a play and 
keep the events portrayed within the limit of twenty-four hours 
without denuding the plot of action, he might have been less 
rigorous in his demands and less confident of the validity of his 
views. He might have recognized the justice of the view 
of a dramatist such as Gombauld, who said: “I know that the 
plot is one of the principal parts of a play; that is why I want 
to have as much of a plot as the fitness, the time, and nature of 
that action require.” He might have seen that exact observance 
of the rules might make it impossible to treat certain fine plots, 
as Isnard said in a preface to Du Cros’ Fillis de Scire (1631). 
But Chapelain refrained from playwriting—no doubt wisely. 

Chapelain denied that the narrative passages spoken by mes- 
sengers in drama are tiresome, and argued for the re-introduc- 
tion of the chorus and of the musical accompaniment. However, 
having laid down verisimilitude as the foundation of his critical 
theory, he was forced to admit that the soliloquy, in which the 
actor gives information to the audience, is objectionable. He 
would always introduce someone, when such recitals are neces- 
sary, who would be interested in having them made to him. The 
soliloquy is only admissible if it is not a pure narration but an 
“interior discourse” such as comes to all men who are not abso- 
lutely stupid. Finally, he does not hesitate in his pitiless logic 
to advocate the banishment of dialogue in verse and rhyme on 
the ground that it is absurd. His conception of verisimilitude is 
so realistic, so inartistic, that it is strange he did not insist upon 
the real Cleopatra rising from her tomb to portray Cleopatra 
on the stage. 

Whatever one may think of Chapelain’s arguments, it was 
necessary to impose limits of some sort upon the dramatists who 
were confusing their plays by building them upon triple plots, 


380 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


were using and abusing the element of chance, and were fashion- 
ing plots by stringing together many events and by recounting 
many others in the exposition, as Du Ryer did in his Cléomedon 
(ca. 1634). 

In this play we learn from the conversation of Queen Argire 
that twenty years ago she was seduced by King Policandre 
and had borne a son, Céliante, to him. When he married 
another princess, she married the King of the Santons to whom 
she bore a second son. She substituted her first born and sent 
the second child away. Her husband died. She sought to marry 
Policandre; and, when he rejected her suit, she sent Céliante to 
war against his own father, Policandre. 

When this exposition has been given in the scene in Argire’s 
tent, the scene changes to Policandre’s court. The King is sore 
beset and is awaiting the arrival of Cléomedon, a freed slave 
who once saved him from a lion. A captured confidant of 
Argire is about to disclose to the King the fact that Céliante 
is the King’s son, but the retainer dies before Cléomedon arrives. 
During the entr’acte the King wins a victory and captures 
Céliante. Both young men fall in love with the princess, but 
she loves only Cléomedon. Célanire and Bélise, her sister, fall 
in love with Céliante, and thus make the love imbroglio com- 
plete. Policandre has promised Célanire to Cléomedon; but he 
decides for reasons of state to marry her to Céliante and to give 
Bélise to Cléomedon. The latter opposes this solution and 
Cléomedon goes mad and seeks to kill Céliante. It is reported 
that Queen Argire has died while coming to attend the marriage 
of Céliante; but she appears opportunely to disclose the fact 
that Céliante is Policandre’s son. ‘This precludes a marriage 
between Céliante and his half-sister. It is discovered by a birth 
mark that Cléomedon is the son of Argire and the King of the 
Santons. He thus can marry Célanire. Bélise, found to be a 
step-daughter of Policandre, marries Céliante, while Policandre 
marries Argire. 

Such a series of events, arising from causes manufactured by 
the dramatist or the novelist and brought to an end by equally 


Ee 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 381 


forced means, does not produce the highest form of drama. 
The unity of action is destroyed by the shift in the interest from 
Argire and Policandre to their sons and daughters. It is true 
that the observance of the unity of time and place will not 
restore the unity of action to such a play; and yet, if the events 
in the play proper are limited to those which happen in one day 
and in one place, there is more likelihood that the dramatist 
will observe the unity of action, although he runs the risk of 
making his plot thin. Also he must give more thought to the 
psychology of his characters, if the events become less important. 

About the same time that Du Ryer produced this play, 
Mairet, under the advice of Chapelain, wrote his Sophonisbe 
(1634) and followed the unities. Perhaps the fact that Trissino 
had written an early, regular Italian tragedy on this subject 
influenced him in his choice of theme. He produced a play 
which, in spite of certain lines, is worthy of respect. The story 
is difficult to put on the stage and to retain at the same time 
the sympathy of the audience for the heroine, because she is 
placed in the situation of marrying Massinissa just before or 
just after the death of Syphax, her first husband. Trissino had 
failed to portray the psychological tragedy in the situation. 
Monchrétien, in his Cartarginoise, had also been unable to por- 
tray anything but the physical tragedy. Mairet succeeds much 
better in making us conscious of a mental struggle caused by 
the events. As his preface tells us, he has Syphax die in battle 
so that Sophonisba will not have two living husbands, and he 
has Massinissa commit suicide. Jn Trissino’s version, Massinissa 
makes a cold and unheroic impression by merely regretting that 
he sent the poison so soon to Sophonisba and did not wait until 
nightfall and rescue her. Also, in the Italian play, Sophonisba is 
not really in love with Massinissa, but marries him in order to 
avoid being led in captivity through the streets of Rome. Mairet, 
however, had learned from the pastoral the dramatic value of a 
real love interest which he introduced into his tragedy. 

In the first act Syphax bitterly upbraids his wife Sophonisba 
for having written a letter to Massinissa, who is besieging the 


382 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


city. She tries to explain that her attempt to communicate with 
her former lover was due to a wish to gain a friend and protector 
among her enemies. Syphax is not convinced by this explanation. 
He tells his general, Philon, of his wife’s perfidy and goes forth 
to fight a battle which he knows wil] end in his death. Sopho- 
nisba learns from her confidante that the man carrying her letter 
did not willingly betray her, but was captured and searched. She 
loves Massinissa; but her heart is torn, because she has deceived 
a husband who worships her. Mairet was not able to sustain 
this inner struggle as Corneille will later, when Pauline in 
Polyeucte finds herself in a similar situation; but he pointed the 
way to psychological tragedy. 

Sophonisba is on the stage during the whole of the second act 
and we experience the events through the emotions which they 
call forth in her. The battle is about to be waged. In her cruel 
position she must long for the success of her enemies. Her 
brave subjects are defending her—the mortal enemy of their 
king, her husband. She learns that the battle is lost, her hus- 
band slain. She begs that one of her retainers slay her; but 
her confidante persuades her to try to win Massinissa. 

In the third act, Massinissa appears. He orders that So- 
phonisba be captured and held carefully; otherwise the victory is 
only half won. The news is brought to Sophonisba that her 
lover is coming and the obligatory scene between the two, care- 
fully prepared for, takes place immediately. It is a dramatic 
situation full of suspense and is well handled except for one 
or two unfortunate lines of comedy spoken by Sophonisba’s 
confidante. Massinissa’s heart is touched by the queen to whom 
he was formerly affianced and who now kneels before him beg- 
ging that she may not be paraded in Rome as a captive. He 
lifts her up, and seals their troth with a kiss. 

The first scene of the next act is pervaded by a foreboding 
calm before the storm. ‘The two lovers have been married. 
They recall how years ago, when they were affianced, she was 
married to Syphax for reasons of state. In the midst of this 
tragic happiness, Massinissa is summoned by Scipio. This 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 383 


forebodes ill, but he swears to protect her. Scipio orders him 
to give up his wife. Massinissa pleads in vain. The marriage 
is declared null. He begs Lzlius to plead for him. 

In the fifth act, Lelius reports to Massinissa that his plea was 
vain. A messenger brings a letter from Sophonisba asking Mas- 
sinissa to send the poison as he promised, if he could not bend 
the will of Scipio. He wishes to bear the cup himself, but 
Lelius informs him that he cannot see his wife. He goes to 
get the poison. Sophonisba recounts her tragic dream to her 
confidante. She receives the poison, drinks it and her at- 
tendants carry her away. Massinissa, informed of her death, 
begs to behold her body. “The room appears” and Massinissa 
pours forth his imprecations and despair. Scipio and Lelius 
withdraw. Massinissa stabs himself and dies on the body of 
his bride. 

The observance of the unity of time has not caused any scene 
necessary to the plot to be left out. If the point of attack were 
removed farther from the climax, nothing would be gained from 
a dramatic point of view, since the events leading up to the 
situation are explained at the correct moment within the play. 
By considering the whole palace as the scene of the action—an 
allowable interpretation of the unity of place—Mairet has not 
been forced to omit any scene. Massinissa enters rather late 
in the play, but there is no reason for having him appear earlier. 
The plot happens to be one in which these rules can be observed 
without the loss of dramatic value. Only the hurried second 
marriage is dangerous to handle and Mairet was conscious of 
this pitfall. There are enough events to sustain the interest and 
to allow the characters, going through different phases of emo- 
tion, to be active in developing the situation. Yet there are 
not so many events that the author can rely upon them entirely. 
Mairet had to analyze the motives and thoughts of his people; 
and he had the time to do so which would have been lacking 
in a play built upon the melodramatic plan of presenting many 
incidents. Mairet succeeded, where Hardy failed, in producing 
a tragedy in which the action develops through an interplay 


384 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


of external events and internal feelings. The dramatic struggle 
has begun to enter the human mind instead of merely using 
the human body as a shuttlecock. Events in the plot have begun 
to follow each other psychologically, not merely temporally. 
Things have begun to happen because the hero and heroine think 
in a certain way, and not merely because they are shipwrecked 
or captured. Mairet’s Sophonisbe is the most artistic French 
tragedy up to the time of its production, not, as Chapelain would 
have said, because it observes the unities, but because by observ- 
ing the unities Mairet made the play a dramatic tragedy which 
unfolds partially in the human heart. 

During these years an important influence of the Spanish 
drama had been gathering momentum. Hardy had taken the 
plots of some of his plays from French translations of Spanish 
romances and pastorals. His Cornélie and La Force du Sang 
revert to Cervantes’ Exemplary Novels and his Felisméne to 
Montemayor’s Diana; but he owes nothing to Spanish drama. 
French tragi-comedy, however, as produced by him and his 
successors, with its complicated plot and melodramatic effects 
of suspense and surprise, its liberty in regard to place and time, 
prepared the way for the direct imitation of Spanish drama. 

Beyond the Pyrenees, the classical rules of the unities had 
not been accepted by the playwrights. Lope de Vega had said 
in his New Art of Writing Plays that the public wanted to see 
everything from Genesis to the Last Judgment represented in 
two hours. Lope advises that the action should “take place in 
as little time as possible, except when the poet is writing his- 
tory in which some years have to pass; these he can relegate 
to the space between the acts, wherein, if necessary, he can have 
a character go on some journey; a thing that generally offends 
whoever perceives it. But let not him who is offended go to see 
them.” Wise advice to the critic; but unfortunately seldom fol- 
lowed because the critic’s breath of life depends upon being of- 
fended. In complexity of plot the Spanish dramatist far surpassed 
the French. “The criterion of a fine plot,” says Professor Mar- 
tinenche, “seems to be for the Spanish to arouse surprise and to 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 385 


astonish by the wildest ingenuities.” Love at cross purposes, 
abductions, disguises, duels, battles, sudden encounters, all that 
is melodramatic is poured indiscriminately, sometimes to the 
point of confusion, into the plots of their plays. Lope de Vega 
insisted upon the value of the unforeseen and even the am- 
biguous. He says of the play divided into three instead of five 
acts according to Spanish practice: ‘In the first act, set forth 
the case. In the second, weave together the events in such wise 
that until the middle of the third act one may hardly guess the 
outcome. Always trick expectancy; and hence it may come to. 
pass that something quite far from what is promised may be 
left to the understanding. . . . To deceive the audience with the 
truth is a thing that has seemed well. . . . Equivoke and the 
uncertainty arising from ambiguity have always held a large 
place among the crowd, for it thinks that it alone understands 
what the other is saying.’”’ Also Lope pointed out that the male 
disguise of women is usually very pleasing. The Spanish em- 
ployed more events in a single play than did their French con- 
temporaries, with the exception of Du Ryer; and there are few, 
if any, dramatic situations which were not used by Lope de 
Vega. Thus, Spanish plays offered a rich mine for French 
dramatists who were seeking relatively complicated plots de- 
veloping through melodramatic events and situations. Most of 
the lesser French playwrights who imitated the Spanish drama 
were content to borrow the plots and incidents. They did not 
even vaguely realize that in these complicated situations two 
powerful human emotions and ideals, love and honor, were 
personified and constantly clashing in a dramatic struggle. 

The love portrayed in Italian tragedy was often horrible and 
gave rise to vengeance alone. In Italian comedy, love was 
voluptuous. In French tragedy of the sixteenth century, the 
love element caused tragic lamentation. In the farce, it was 
frankly indecent. Tragi-comedy portrayed romantic love such 
as would cause a hero to suffer and perform great deeds for his 
mistress. Love in pastoral comedy was gallant and made lyric 
poets out of the lovers; or in the case of the satyrs it was sexual 


386 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


passion. In French comedy, after 1629, love was gallant and 
capricious. 

As for honor, after Tasso in his Aminta had described it as an 
idolo d’errore, idol d’inganno, the pastoral drama had portrayed 
this ideal as an obstacle in the path of love and pleasure. 

In the Spanish drama, love is a deep, human emotion. It is 
active, powerful, sacrificing everything but honor. From such 
a conception of two ideals, which come constantly into conflict, 
springs a dramatic, emotional struggle which can take place 
between two human beings, or, better yet, in the heart of one 
person. “The subjects in which honor has a part,” as Lope said, 
“stir everybody.” 

Rotrou, who founded several of his plays on the plots of 
Spanish dramas, was primarily led to these sources by his desire 
to put before the audience ingenious plots and theatrically effec- 
tive situations. He is not afraid to represent incidents which 


purely classical dramatists would later narrate. In his [phigénie, 


he puts the last scene on the stage and gives the following direc- 
tions for the impending sacrifice: ‘““Calchas has taken the knife, 
and, at the instant he is going to strike his victim, a clap of 
thunder is made; the Heavens open; Diana appears in a cloud; 
all the characters kneel.” He saw the action and a stage picture, 
as few dramatists of his time did or would for many years to 
come. If not a great dramatist, he was a man of the theatre, 
which is more than can be said of many of his predecessors 
and contemporaries. 

Writing for the troupe in the Hétel de Bourgogne, he was not 
troubled by the question of the unities. He wanted to produce 
plays such as his Laure Persecutée (1638), which, from the rise 
to the fall of the curtain, would hold the attention of the audience 
by its rapid fire action, beginning in the very first line, when 
the count says to Prince Orantée: ‘My Lord, in the name of 
the King, I place Your Highness under arrest!” Swift in his 
exposition, which was more dramatic for being combined with an 


_ important event, Rotrou sweeps the action through many inci- — 


dents typically Spanish. Thus his heroine is disguised as a page; 


OO “ 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 387 


another woman impersonates the heroine, as in Much Ado About 
Nothing, while her lover sees his rival make love to her; the 
heroine appears disguised before the King who has ordered her 
to be put to death and causes the King to fall in love with her; 
daggers are drawn but not used. To all this are added scenes of 
“equivoke and uncertainty arising from ambiguity,” brought 
about by criss-cross love affairs to be straightened out by the 
device of a long-lost child. 

But Rotrou did not merely transport to the French stage the 
brilliant shell of Spanish comedy with its intricate convolutions, 
as did his contemporaries Beys and Pichou. He retained some 
of the spirit of love and honor and jealousy as they are por- 
trayed in Spanish drama where they are emotions which rack 
the soul, instead of being merely convenient pegs upon which 
to hang a plot. The jealousy of the Prince Orantée in Laure 
Persecutée is drawn with subtle detail, as he longs and yet fears 
to see his mistress who, he thinks, has betrayed him. The lovers 
in L’Heureuse Constance are firm to the point of death in their 
mutual passion. In Agésilan de Colchos his heroine is in a 
dramatic situation which foreshadows the situation of Chiméne 
in the Cid. She has been abandoned by her lover, Florisel, and 
her wounded sense of honor forced her to promise the hand of 
her daughter to the man who will slay Florisel, whom she still 
loves, whose death she demands while she longs for his life and 
love. Like Chiméne, she faints when his supposed death is 
announced. 

But Rotrou had not the power to sustain these dramatic situa- 
tions. The jealousy of Orantée, well drawn as it is, does not 
become the mainspring of the plot as in Othello. Having 
sketched these human passions, Rotrou turns to the series of 
events for his main interest. His characters do not cause the 
successive situations to arrive because they are human beings 
animated by love, honor and jealousy. The problems of his 
earlier plays are still too external, founded too often on situa- 
tions which do not actually exist, and recall the situations of both 
classical comedy and the novel. 


388 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The play was still to be written in which the dramatic strug- 
gle of the emotions and ideals of the character, faced by a tragic 
situation, caused events to unfold. The play was the Cid; 
and Corneille was the dramatist. 

In 1632 Corneille had produced his Clitandre. He asserts in 
the preface that he wrote it to show that even if he had not 
observed the unity of time in Mélite, it was not because he was 
ignorant of the rule. In his Examen he says that, because 
Mélite had been criticized for its thin plot and familiar style, 
he undertook to write a play which observed the unity of time, 
was full of incidents, was in a more elevated style and was 
worthless, in order to justify his Mélite. He adds, and one 
easily agrees with him, “I succeeded perfectly.” 

The plot is so complicated that he admits that those who have 
only seen the play once are quite excusable if they do not under- 
stand it. To attempt to describe the situation and action in 
detail would be rather hopeless. Suffice it to say that the argu- 
ment is a short story; and on the remarkable complex tangle of 
love motives recalling the pastoral he has built up a series 
of wild scenes. A woman is about to slay her sister when the 
sword is snatched from her hand by a man who needs it to 
defend himself. The same lady disguises herself as a man, and, 
when recognized by her would-be ravisher, puts out his eye with 
a hairpin. He is about to kill her, when a prince, whose horse 
has been killed under him by a thunderbolt, arrives. The 
lady trips her adversary and thus helps the prince to capture 
him. At the end of the play, when the usual marriages are 


being arranged, the lady begs her sister’s pardon for having _ 


tried to kill her. The sister replies: “Sister, you mistake me — 
for someone else if you believe I would remember that any — 
more.” So much for tragic problems at the beginning of his 
career ! . 

Corneille points out in his preface that he has put the action 
on the stage instead of having messengers recount the marvellous 
incidents. “This novelty,’ he continues, “may please some; 


and anyone who wishes to weigh the advantage which action ~ 


ie 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 389 


has over these long and tiresome recitals, will not find it strange 
that I preferred to divert the eyes rather than importune the 
ears.” He admits, in his Examen, that the monologues are too 
long and too numerous in this play; but he also gives the reason 
for this defect of most of his work, including the Cid. The 
actors demanded them in order to show off their ability. About 
placing action on the stage and complexity of the story, Corneille 
had nothing to learn from Spanish drama. He was far removed 
from classical theories of the drama, although he was bothered 
by the existence of the rules of the unity of time and place. 
He could not dismiss them from his mind, as did Rotrou. 

Mairet’s production of Sophonisbe in 1634 gave dramatists 
such as Corneille, Scudéry, Rotrou and others food for thought. 
From 1634 to the time of the production of the Cid in 1637, 
about twelve mediocre tragedies were written. But here was a 
successful play which was a regular, classical tragedy. Nat- 
urally, Corneille was not to be outdone by a rival. In 1635 he 
produced his Medée, imitated from Seneca’s and Euripides’ ver- 
sions. The chorus having disappeared from French tragedy, it 
was necessary to devise enough material to fill up the lacuna. 
Also, tragi-comedy had accustomed the audience to many events. 
Corneille, therefore, borrows certain effects from tragi-comedy 
with the result that the plot is more complicated and there are 
more incidents in the play than in Seneca’s tragedy. Indeed, his 
Medée is a tragi-comedy without the happy ending. 

He draws from Euripides’ play the character of AXgeus and 
he actually represents the Athenian king as in love with Creusa, 
“to give,” as he said, “the monarch more interest in the action.” 
ZEgeus tries to abduct her. She is saved by Jason, and A®geus 
is thrown into prison. Medea visits him in prison and releases 
him by magic. He then offers to marry her. All this is pure 
tragi-comedy, as are also the pastoral scenes of incantation in 
the grotto and the incident of the magic wand, by which Medea 
makes the messenger suddenly stand motionless and tell her 
the effect of the poisoned robe. 

Other melodramatic incidents, which depart from the original, 


390 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


are the deaths of Creon and Creusa on the stage, the avowed 
intention of Jason to slay the children himself, and his suicide 
at the end of the play when he finds that Medea has been able 
to kill the children first. “The spectacle of the deaths,’ said 
Corneille, “was necessary to fill up my fifth act. ... But it 
has not the effect demanded by tragedy.” He regretted the scene 
in the prison as being disagreeable; but there is no evidence 
that he regretted introducing the impulse on the part of Jason 
to slay the children, which is so “disagreeable” as to be laugh- 
able. Whatever change he makes in the psychology of his 
characters in this play is utterly undignified and inartistic. 
When Corneille decided to use Castro’s Las Mocedades del Cid 
as the source of his next play, he was in possession of a plot 
rich in dramatic situations and full of events. The rule of the 
unity of place, however, was now interpreted as meaning that 
the scenes represented must be confined to one town. ‘The 
stage was set with scenes showing the palace of the King, the 
apartment of the Infanta, the house of Chiméne, and a street 
or a public square. Corneille had decided that it was preferable 
to observe the unity of time, and to compress the events into 
twenty-four hours. . He even calls attention in the lines to the 
length of the action, although he regretted it later for the per- 
fectly valid reason that he thereby made the spectators conscious 
of the difficulty he experienced in compressing the action into 
one day. He did not learn until after he had written many plays 


that it is better for a dramatist who finds himself in a technical ~ 
difficulty to avoid any attempt to explain or justify his pro- — 
cedure. Many inconsistencies and incongruities are unnoticed ~ 
by an audience, provided the dramatist maintains a discreet — 


silence. 


With these interpretations of the unities as a starting point, — 
it was necessary for Corneille to exercise great care in the selec- 
tion of his point of attack, of the events to be enacted and of — 
those to be included within the limits of his play, whether they q 
were narrated or not. The original Spanish play is in two — 
parts, each of which constitutes a separate play in three acts. — 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 391 


The scenes change to many different localities and the action 
extends over a period of many years. Even Corneille’s some- 
what liberal interpretation of the unities precluded the possi- 
bility of making the interest depend upon a series of romantic 
events. If he were not to repeat the mistake of his predecessors 
in the field of serious drama and merely represent the emotions 
arising from pathetic incidents, he had to centre the interest on 
the intensely dramatic situation offered by the Spanish original. 
He chose the latter course. Whether he did so with full con- 
sciousness of his artistry at the time or not, we do not know. 
The question is not important except for the fact that we are 
trying to discover the actual, conscious knowledge of dramatic 
technique possessed at the time; but we know that some years 
later he understood some of the reasons why his play is drama 
of the highest type. In the Avertissement of the edition of 
1648 he says that the reason for the success of the Cid was that 
it fulfilled the two principal conditions as set forth by Aristotle. 
“The first is that the one who suffers and is persecuted is neither 
bad nor entirely virtuous, but a man more virtuous than bad, 
who by some human weakness which is not a crime falls into a 
misfortune which he does not deserve; the other, that the perse- 
cution and the danger do not come from an enemy, nor from 
one who is indifferent, but from a person who must love the one 
who suffers and must be loved by him.” While others were 
splitting hairs over non-essential and even imaginary ideas of 
Aristotle, Corneille was the first dramatist to recognize the 
truth of these important ideas and to put them into practice. 
Like Shakespeare, Corneille placed the dramatic struggle of 
tragedy in the heart and soul of characters who arouse human 
sympathy. 

The dramatic problem—the struggle between love and duty, 
or love and honor—exists in the Spanish original; but it is over- 
shadowed by the series of events which seek to bring out the 
great deeds and chivalric heroism of the young knight. Cor- 
neille centres the interest from the first scene of his play on the 
emotions of the characters and the conflict of love and honor. 


392 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


In the opening scene Chiméne learns from her confidante that 
her father looks with entire favor upon her love for Rodrigue. 
The Count has just gone to the council where he expects to be 
made governor of the young prince. When the council is over, 
Rodrigue’s father will formally request the hand of Chiméne 
for his son. The Infanta confesses to Léonor that she loves 
Rodrigue; but, since a marriage to him is impossible because of 
the difference in rank, she will hasten the marriage of Chiméne 
to Rodrigue, so as to quiet her own passion for the young knight. 
The Count and Don Diégue come from the council. Don Diégue 
has been made governor. The quarrel ensues. The Count slaps 
Don Diégue who draws his sword, which the Count strikes from 
his hand, and then departs with an insult on his lips. Don Diégue 
is thus stripped of all honor and is actually made unworthy of. 
the post to which he has been appointed. He is as completely 
disgraced as a forger or a murderer would be in modern times. 
When his son arrives, Don Diégue tells him of the disgrace, 
which falls upon Rodrigue as well. Fully conscious of Rodrigue’s 
love for Chiméne, Don Diégue bids his son slay her father or 
die. In a monologue, Rodrigue weighs the heart-breaking situa- 
tion, but only one course is open to him. He must wipe out the 
stain. 

Act II. Don Arias pleads with the Count to make an hon- 
orable apology as the King has ordered. The Count refuses to 
consent to this humiliation. Rodrigue challenges him to a duel. 
They leave to fight to the death. The Infanta promises Chiméne, 
who fears that a duel will be fought, to make Rodrigue a prisoner 
so that he may not see her father. She summons a page, who 
announces that the Count and Rodrigue have already met. The 
Infanta confesses to her confidante that should Rodrigue triumph, 
she could perhaps marry him, enobled by his exploits. The 
King hears that the Count has refused to offer an apology. He 
also announces that the Moors are about to attack the city. 
At this moment a courtier brings the news that Rodrigue has 
slain the Count. Chiméne enters and demands vengeance. Don 
Diégue offers his life to pay for the crime his son has committed. 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 393 


Act III. Rodrigue comes to Chiméne’s house; and her con- 
fidante hides him as Chiméne enters accompanied by Don Sanche, 
who is also in love with her. He offers to be her avenger. She 
replies that she will accept his offer if it becomes necessary. 
Left alone with Elvire, she pours forth her grief. She is in 
honor bound to avenge her father’s death, though she still loves 
Rodrigue. 


ELVIRE 
if you love Rodrigue, he cannot offend you. 
CHIMENE 
Tis true. 
ELVIRE 
Then, after all, what will you do? 
CHIMENE 
I will avenge my father, and my woe. 
I'll follow him, destroy him, then I’ll die. 
(RODRIGUE enters.) 
RODRIGUE 
Nay, madam, you shall find an easier way. 
My life is in your hands; your honor’s sure. 


Few obligatory scenes are built upon more dramatic situations. 
The opponents are face to face; the problem is real; no deus ex 
machina can solve it. The conflict is in their souls. Corneille 
does not fail to rise to the situation and press the last drop of 
tragedy out of the problem. If he fails at all, it is, as he admits, 
in making his characters indulge in over-refinements of subtle 
argument at such a moment. Yet there is withal a touching 
pathos and dramatic power in their words unknown to French 
tragedy before the Cid. Tortured by their love, by their pres- 
ence together, each is trying to do as honorable men and women 
should in accordance with the inexorable code of honor. 


RODRIGUE 
In thy dead father’s name, for our love’s sake, 
In vengeance or in pity slay me here! 
Thy wretched lover keener pain will know 
To live and feel thy hate than meet thy blow. 


394 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


CHIMENE 
Leave me, I hate thee not. 

RODRIGUE 
"Tis my desert. 

CHIMENE 
I cannot. 

RODRIGUE 
When my deed is full known 
And men can say that still thy passion burns, 
Dost thou not fear the cruel stinging words 
Of censure and of malice? Silence them; 
Save thine own fame by sending me to death. 


CHIMENE 
Depart. 

RODRIGUE 

- What wilt thou do? 

CHIMENE 
The fires of wrath burn with the flames of love. 
My father’s death commands my utmost zeal; 
Tis duty drives me with its cruel goad, 
And my dear wish is nothing to achieve. 


RODRIGUE 

O miracle of love! 
CHIMENE 

O weight of woe! 
RODRIGUE 

We pay our filial debt with suffering. 
CHIMENE 

Rodrigue, who would have thought! 
RODRIGUE 

Or could have dreamed, 
CHIMENE 


That joy so near so soon our grasp would miss. 
RODRIGUE 

Or storms so swift, already close to port, 

Should shatter the dear bark of all our hope. 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 395 


CHIMENE 
O mortal griefs! 
RODRIGUE 
Regrets that count for naught! 


The act closes with Don Diégue sending Rodrigue forth to 
fight the Moors. One wonders what Shakespeare would have 
written had Juliet been in honor bound to avenge the death of 
Paris; but one does not attempt to answer the question. 

Act IV. Elvire announces to Chimeéne the great victory won 
by Rodrigue. She is torn by her admiration for him and her 
duty to her father’s memory. The Infanta tries to convince her 
that now her duty wears a different face. She can no longer seek 
vengeance upon the defender of the realm. The King confers 
the title of “Cid” upon Rodrigue, who then describes his victory 
in too great detail for modern ears. He withdraws as Chiméne 
comes once more to claim vengeance. When she is told by the 
King, in order to test her feelings, that she has been avenged, 
she betrays her love by fainting; but she insists that she has 
fainted from joy. The King refuses to be deceived, and she 
asserts that she fainted from disappointment because his death 
was supposedly glorious and not on a scaffold. She finally offers 
to wed the man who will conquer Rodrigue in single combat. 
Don Sanche offers to become her champion. She accepts him 
and the King decrees she shall marry-the one who is victorious. 

Act V. Rodrigue comes to Chiméne to bid her farewell for- 
ever. He does not intend to defend himself. Chiméne replies 
that he must defend himself for the sake of his honor; and at 
last she confesses her love for him and bids him win the combat 
of which she is the prize. With a wild cry of joy, he goes forth 
to fight. 

An episodic scene then occurs in which the Infanta, after hoping 
that she may now love this hero, again decides not to betray 
the love of Chiméne and Rodrigue. 

Chiméne still fights her battle between love and filial piety, 
when Don Sanche enters and lays his sword at her feet. Believ- 


396 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


ing that Don Sanche has slain her lover she breaks down and 
confesses to him and to the King that she loved Rodrigue 
always. But Rodrigue appears. He had disarmed Don Sanche 
and told him to lay his sword before Chiméne; but she can no 
longer pursue him for the sake of vengeance. Yet can she obey 
the King and marry him? The King suggests that she wait 
until time has dried her tears, and that Rodrigue go forth and 
win new glory by his valor. 

It is true that the plot is to some extent a blind-alley theme. 
Since the action takes place within twenty-four hours, the idea 
of even discussing a marriage between the lovers is somewhat 
distasteful. In the Spanish original three years have passed. 
But does the modern theatre-goer stop to think any more than 
did the vast majority of the audience which saw the Cid when it 
was new? Jealous critics raised the cry that the Cid offended the 
rules of decorum. The naive Chapelain suggested that it would 
have been more in accordance with the rules of decorum if the 
Count recovered from his wounds, or if Chiméne were found to 
be not his daughter. In other words, he would have tragedy 
changed to melodrama for the sake of decorum. But everyone 
loved and admired Chimene and Rodrigue. Therein lay Cor- 
neille’s success. , . 

The two obligatory scenes, the interviews between the lovers, 
were also criticized on the same grounds; but Corneille, in his 
Examen, shows exactly why they were successful. He says: 
“Almost everyone wanted these interviews to be held; and I 


noticed in the first performances that when this unfortunate — 


lover came to her, there arose a kind of quivering in the audience 
which showed a wonderful eagerness and redoubling of atten- 
tion in regard to what they had to say to each other in such a 
pitiable situation.” 

The play is not technically faultless. The rdle of the Infanta 
is episodic and was finally deleted from the acting version. The 
description of the battle is too long, although it is connected 
with the action and is, as effectiveness demands, delivered by 
the hero and not by a mere messenger. The confidants play too 


a a 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 397 


large a part. It would have been more interesting to have the 
Count give his consent to Chiméne’s marriage to Rodrigue than 
to have her hear it from Elvire. The lovers should meet before 
our eyes before tragedy enters their love. Chiméne need not 
witness the duel, as in the Spanish version, but she should know 
more definitely that it is taking place, and we should see her 
receiving the news of her father’s death and witness her emotions 
torn by grief and love before they are torn by love and duty. 

In respect to the number and variety of the incidents of the 
plot and the three perils which the hero undergoes, the play 
resembles the usual tragi-comedy. Only from 1648 on was the 
Cid called a tragedy. The love element harks back through 
Corneille’s comedies to the pastoral. The lyric lamentation in 
monologue and in dialogue and certain narrations, such as that 
of the battle, recall French tragedy of the Renaissance. 

Yet the great advance in serious drama has been accomplished 
by making the tragedy and the conflict psychological. The 
underlying motives are in Castro’s play; and of all the im- 
portant scenes in the Cid, the second interview of the lovers is 
the only one which has no prototype in the original Spanish play. 
But it was Corneille who centred the interest on the psycho- 
logical problem by making the events of secondary importance. 
From one point of view this change in tone was an easy one 
to make. The observance of the non-essential rule of the unity 
of time had great influence on the dramatist in making this 
change; but the result was none the less a masterpiece. 

A few jealous critics raised a tempest by trying to prove, 
vainly of course, that the Czd was not a good play, and the 
famous literary feud, the “quarrel of the Cid,” arose. This 
dispute was of importance to the development of drama in the 
fact that it caused the principles of playwriting to be widely 
discussed, and showed that after all the pedantic critic is only 
a pedantic critic—without influence. We are not concerned with 
the petty motives and results of the controversy. 

In Horace, Cinna and Polyeucte, Corneille continued to centre 
the interest on the development of characters endowed with an 


398 | THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


indomitable will which overcomes all obstacles. His tragic situa- 
tions are complicated, as in his comedies, by two men being 
in love with the same woman; but every event in the play has 
the sole purpose of showing how the hero becomes master of his 
fate and wills the dénouement even more than in the Cid. The 
passive, suffering hero or heroine, such as Cleopatra, Dido, 
Sophonisba, has given way to the strong-willed, active hero, 
such as Horace, who slays his sister, and Polyeucte, who becomes 
a Christian and suffers martyrdom with an obstinacy that is 
superhuman—and almost inhuman. One misses, more and more 
after the Cid, the human moment of hesitation in these per- 
sonifications of will power. The delicate shades of psychology 
are lacking. Thus, transition scenes, when a principal character 
talks with a confidant, are often cold, because the principal 
character is one-sided in his greatness. But Corneille was a 
master dramatist in the obligatory scenes; and he rarely omits 
one. He even makes the recital of events off-stage an integral 
part of the action. Instead of being pathetic or nerve-racking 
recitations, serving as an undramatic dénouement, the announce- 
ment of the event causes some character to act and not merely 
to commit suicide, like Dido or Cleopatra in earlier tragedy. 
The narration of the death of Pompée in the tragedy of that 
name, takes place in the second act. It is actually the initial 
cause of the rest of the action. : 
The events in his plots follow in causal sequence, once the 
situation and characters are devised, because his hero wills that 
this shall happen since that has happened. The events are 
subordinated to his characters. Thus in the story of the three 
Horatii, one of the brothers kills his sister. Corneille knows that 
this will overstep the bounds of decorum, but he does not hesi- 
tate to portray the action practically on the stage, and the 
actress brought it even actually on the stage. This is, to him, an 
historic fact. His task is to show how the interplay of events 
and the psychology of his characters made this event unavoid- 
able. Such is the method of a great dramatist. If Corneille 
divested his characters of human emotions, the fact remains that 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 399 


he swept aside the undramatic drama of the Renaissance and 


produced a form of drama which, down to the present day has 
never been successfully displaced, even though many critics have 
been loud in their condemnation of the well-made play. 
Corneille was skilful in plotting. He searched history for 
dramatic situations which he developed into evenly balanced 
plots. In Rodogune a mother promises to place on the throne 
that one of her sons who will slay Rodogune. With geometrical 
precision Rodogune promises to marry the son who will slay his 
mother. In Horace the same balance of opposing forces and 
emotions is maintained. The feelings of his characters swing 


in the balance; their fates are inextricably intertwined. At 


times, as in Héraclius, he stretches the complexity so far beyond 
the breaking point that, as he admits, a spectator would have 
to see the play twice to understand it. Simplicity of plot in 
French tragedy was Racine’s innovation. Corneille was too 
much under the influence of Spanish drama to use simple plots. 

Like all successful playwrights and much to the disgust of 
most literary critics of all times, Corneille believed that the aim 


.of drama was to please the audience. In order to please the 


spectator one must represent the “truth.” The “truth” can be 
represented only by observing verisimilitude. ‘The truth being 
the aim,” as Lanson says of Corneille’s technique, “verisimilitude 
will be the law: all the rules are reduced to the aim of making 


_ the plays as verisimilar as possible.” 


Most dramatists and critics of Corneille’s time would have 
subscribed in substance to this abstract theory, although they 
would have emphasized, as did D’Aubignac, the moral aim of 
drama. Yet Corneille’s conception of what is true and what is 
verisimilar is much more psychological than the material con- 
ception that Chapelain, La Mesnardiére and D’Aubignac had 
of these terms. Their chief concern was that drama should be 
life-like and so real that the spectator could not tell the difference 
between the imitation and the thing imitated. Thus La Mes- 
nardiére asserts in his Poétique (1640) that each play should 
contain only one peripeteia, because it is improbable that a 


400 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


change from joy to sorrow or vice versa would happen twice 
in one day. D’Aubignac in his Pratique du Thédtre (1657) meas- 
ures exactly the size of the place of action by the “space in 
which the average eye can see a man walking without recogniz- 
ing him.” ‘This is simply crass realism. 

By the same kind of reasoning D’Aubignac would have re- 
duced the unity of time from twenty-four to twelve hours. He 
argued that since the action should be a unity, if it is extended 
for twenty-four hours the characters would have to eat and 
sleep and do many things extraneous to the story; and that 
all men can do is to act during a day of twelve hours. A boss 


of a labor union could not argue more eloquently for an eight- © 


hour day! 

Corneille, himself, is not always above such meticulous inter- 
pretations of verisimilitude. For instance, he would extend the 
unity of time from twenty-four to thirty hours, as if six hours 
more made any real difference. He would keep the place of 
the action indefinite, so that the spectator would not notice 
any change of scene. But he is mostly concerned with making 
the psychology of his characters verisimilar or true. He criti- 
cizes the “two perils” which Horace undergoes, not because it 
is improbable that two crises could happen in twenty-four hours, 
but because the play is finished when the hero emerges from 
his first peril unless “the escape from this peril necessarily en- 
gages him in another.” Corneille usually bases his arguments on 
artistic truth and not on realistic fact, as did his contemporaries. 
He says that “the dramatic poem is an imitation, or better yet, 
a portrait of the action of men and it is beyond a doubt that the 
more portraits resemble the original the more excellent they 
are.” He concludes that the unity of time is founded on reason. 
Yet his common sense and his ability as a playwright led him to 
assume the position that we must observe it as much as possible, 
even up to forcing events a little to make them fit; but if this 
is not possible it can be neglected without scruple, and he 
“would not lose a good subject because of not being able to 
reduce it to the rule.” The playwright with a true dramatic 


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FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 401 


instinct always breaks any “rule” for the sake of a good play 
and the great dramatist is the one who can break any rule 
successfully. 

The point of attack in drama of this period is partially gov- 
erned by the rule of the unity of time. The first scene is sup- 
posed to be not more than twenty-four hours before the dénoue- 
ment. Both Corneille and D’Aubignac insist that the action 
should begin the day that the catastrophe takes place. D’Au- 
bignac would have the play “begin as close to the catastrophe as 
possible in order to employ less time for the business of the 


_ stage and to have more liberty to extend the passions and other 


discourses which may please.’ “The dramatist,” he asserts, 
“must remember to take up the action at its last point and, so 
to speak, at its last moment... .” He does admit that some 


things which happened before the beginning must be supposed 
as happening that day; but the poet should assemble all the 
incidents in one day without events seeming feigned or forced. 
That such a procedure may reduce the material of the plot or 
the number of incidents does not trouble the worthy abbé. 

He warns against complex plots as being undesirable, because 
they do not leave room for discourses, while he asserts that 
the “play which has almost no incidents but is sustained by 
excellent discourses will never fail to succceed.” ‘The greatest 
fault that the stage can incur, in his opinion, is to be silent. 
Whatever is done, someone must always be speaking. Silence 
has no place in the theatre except in the entr’acts. Such are 
the views of the seventeenth-century critic concerning what 
Voltaire will justly call “the great art of silence” on the stage. 
The art of acting was in its infancy. The inadequate lighting 
system did not make it possible for the actor to portray fine 
shades of emotions by facial expression. Dramatic grouping of 
characters was yet to be discovered. The scenery was a sketchy 
representation. On the other hand, eloquence and long dis- 
courses were considered as ornaments of conversation in real 
life. Conversation was oratorical in the salons where men and 
women discoursed upon psychological questions. In these cir- 


402 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


cumstances, tragedy was naturally full of oratorical effects. The 
characters belonged to the highest class of society and they con- 
ducted themselves as they would conduct themselves in a salon 
or at court. They observed good form in their actions and in 
their words. Just as a gallows and executioners and grave- 
diggers would be out of place in a salon and hence “shocking,” 
so they were out of place on the tragic stage. They were “un- 
worthy of the majesty of the Poem,” said La Mesnardiére. They 
could only be talked about in a polite manner and it was the 
business of the poet to merit praise by producing the same effect 
through discourses that would be produced by real spectacles. 

Action on the stage, whether physical or psychological, was 
not important to D’Aubignac; but Corneille, while subscribing 
abstractly to this theory of the point of attack, actually pushed 
back the opening of his plays by forcing more events into one 
day than the critics would allow. He was too much interested in 
his art of plotting to do otherwise. In this way he was able, 
as a rule, to make his point of attack precede the initial cause of 
his action, although he could not show all the incidents leading 
up to the one which sets the plot in motion. In the Cid and in 
Horace, the opening scenes are peaceful or reassuring. We see 
the action begin. In Polyeucte the arrival of Pauline’s former 
lover is the initial cause; but perhaps a modern playwright would 
have shown more gradually how Polyeucte was led to become a 
Christian since his conversion is an important link in the chain 
of events. 

Because a relatively late point of attack forces the dramatist 
to begin the action quickly, the scenes of exposition in a classi- 
cal drama are interesting, provided the action of a well-con- 
structed plot ensues. Corneille always built up a dramatic situa- 
tion immediately ; and, if he is to be criticized for his plots, it is 
on the ground of complexity, with a few exceptions such as in 
the case of Cinna. He loses no time in gaining the attention 
of his auditors. He said that one must be sparing of “narra- 
tions of things which happened before the action began, because ~ 
they are not expected and burden the mind of the auditor, who — 


a 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 403 


is obliged to charge his memory with what has been done ten 
or twelve years before to understand what he is going to see.” 
Of course he could not always avoid such narrations. In 
Polyeucte, Pauline has to explain to a confidante her love for 
Sévere and her marriage to Polyeucte. 

Corneille generally entrusts the exposition to the principal 
characters who, in conversation with confidants in the usual 
manner of neo-classical drama, give the essential facts. He uses 
an entirely protatic character, such as Pollux in Medée, very 
rarely, for he held that such characters should play some other 
part than that of mere listeners. His scenes of exposition, how- 
ever, are usually narrative, although he will not allow a narra- 
tive monologue unless the character speaks under great emotion. 
He rarely introduces an incident, such as the council in Pompée, 
in order to give the exposition in connection with action. 

The exposition of neo-classical tragedy was directed to the 
auditor, not to the spectator. The appeal was to the ear, not to 
the eye. There are no examples of expository scenes, such 
as are found in Gidipus Rex or the Eumenides, in which a 
spectacular event arouses the interest, in spite of the fact that 
D’Aubignac, relying on the authority of Vossius and the practice 
of the Greeks, advocated a striking opening. 

Dreams and oracles were still the principal means of fore- 
shadowing both in practice and theory, but the art of preparation 
was well understood. The first act, according to Corneille, not 
only should instruct the spectator in regard to all that has hap- 
pened before the beginning of the play, but also in regard to 
all that he must know in order to understand what he is going 
to see. Each act should leave an expectation of something to 
happen in what follows. No character, with the exception of 
minor confidants and servants, should enter in the following acts 
who have not been made known and prepared for in the first 
act. D’Aubignac is very explicit on this point. It is not neces- 
sary, he says, to anticipate events and rob them of the element 
of surprise by preparing for them. “The preparation of an in- 
cident is not doing or saying things which will disclose it, but 


404 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


which can reasonably cause it without disclosing it.” He gives 
full credit to Aristotle and Scaliger for having originated the 
theory of the art of preparation; but in all justice to the abbé 
it must be said that he states it more clearly than his precursors 
in the field of dramatic criticism. 

The theory of the necessary sequence of events, originated by 
Aristotle and which Corneille put into practice with success, is 
clearly stated by La Mesnardiére, who says: “The poet should 
take care when he is arranging a plot that all his events are so 
mutually dependent that the ones follow the others as by neces- 
sity. Let there be nothing in the action which may not seem 
to have occurred except in so far as it must occur after what 
has happened, so that all things may be so well enchained that 
one results from the other by a correct sequence.” Thus, by 
1640, in France the important law of the well-made play was 
fully recognized and was being put into practice. This marks 
the beginning of a new era in dramatic art, for it practically 
establishes the French conception of the unity of action. Cor- 
neille defines the unity of action as the “unity of peril.” He 
criticizes Horace because the hero does not fall into the second 
peril as a direct result of issuing from the first. In other words, 
the unity of action ceases to exist when the necessary sequence 
of cause and effect is broken. Unity of action, according to this 
view, cannot mean the life of a hero or the fortunes of a city, 
such as Rome during the time of the Czsars. Shakespeare’s 
Julius Caesar does not observe the unity of action, because it 
was not Shakespeare’s purpose to show a necessary sequence 
of cause and effect in the plot. Unity of action has nothing to 
do, abstractly, with the unity of time or place. It is useless 
to compare what is called the larger English view and the nar- 
row French view of the unity of action. The Elizabethan 
dramatists were not striving for this unity of action, as were 
the French. : 

Even in plays with a double plot the interdependence of the 
situations was insisted upon. D’Aubignac says, “the episode 
should be so incorporated with the principal subject that they 


a 


ee eR eRert ie rt 
AL 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 405 


cannot be separated without destroying the whole work.” The 
episode must not be equal in importance to the main story, “but 
must be subordinated and depend on it in such a way that the 
events of the principal story are the cause of the emotions of 
the episode, and the catastrophe of the first must produce natu- 
rally that of the second.” 

In every way the continuity of the action was to be preserved. 
The stage could be left vacant only between the acts, and the 
scenes had to be so linked that an interlocutor of a preceding 
scene appeared on the following. Elaborate directions for link- 
ing scenes are supplied by Corneille and D’Aubignac. The prin- 
cipal characters had to be on the stage as much as possible, and, 
by going through the different emotions, not allow the spectator 
to believe that the action has ceased. On the other hand, en- 
trances and exits were supposed to be carefully motivated; and 
in tragedy the same character did not appear more than once 
or at most twice in the same act, in order to avoid an appearance 
of indecorous hurry. In comedy, a character could appear sev- 
eral times in the same act. 

The theory that the reward of the virtuous and the punish- 
ment of the guilty was the fitting ending of the plot was held by 
La Mesnardiére and Corneille. Aristotle’s theory of the purga- 
tion of the passions had given way to the theory that the theatre 
teaches morality by showing the deserved fate of the good and 
the wicked. But there is no evidence that Corneille ever modi- 
fied the ending of the plot in order to conform to poetic justice. 
He accepted the ending of the story as he found it in history 
or fiction. The theory of poetic justice is incompatible with the 
spirit of classical tragedy in which the hero generally suffers mis- 
fortune out of proportion to his faults. According to Aristotle, 
the unhappy ending was best. Italian tragedy of the Renais- 
sance aimed to portray a horrible ending. French classical 
tragedies as a rule end unhappily, and an unhappy ending does 
not mean that virtue has been rewarded and vice has been pun- 
ished. Not until the more sentimental theatre of the eighteenth 
century has been influenced by English drama does the idea of 


406 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


poetic justice begin to influence the French playwright in ending 
his plays. In the seventeenth century the theory of poetic jus- 
tice inherited from medieval drama was convenient evidence 
that drama had a moral value; but the maxims and sententious 
sayings, which were considered the very props of tragedy in 
the Renaissance, were now beginning to lose favor. Corneille 
advised that the playwright be sparing in his use of them and 
that they be put in concrete, particular language rather than 
in abstract, general terms. 

Corneille, however, advocated lessening the horror of certain 
dénouements especially to maintain the sympathy of the audience 
for his hero. In Rodogune, the son does not force the mother to 
drink poison as history reports the episode. Had Corneille writ- 
ten an Electra he admits he would have had Orestes slay his 
mother by mistake when he was killing A®gisthus. Voltaire 
actually accepted this dénouement for his play Oreste. Cor- 
neille did not look with favor upon the suggestion of D’Aubignac 
that Camille run upon the sword of Horace instead of having 
the brother slay the sister. Yet the desire to lessen the horror 
of the dénouement and to make the hero as sympathetic as pos- 
sible is evident. 7 

Scenes of violent death and scenes which would be incredible 
or shocking, if represented, were still kept off the stage. Deaths 
by poison were allowed to take place in view of the audience, 
as in Rodogune. Corneille held that the rule of not shedding 
blood upon the stage was not inviolable. However, the tradition 
of narrating the deed of violence remained; but the length of 
these narrations decreased. No longer were they the emotional 
climax of the play spun out at great length by minute description 
of disgusting details and by abstract moralizing. Corneille real- 
ized that such narrations must be given by a sympathetic char- 
acter in the presence of those who are most deeply affected, not 
by messengers to the audience. Because no sympathetic char- 
acter was available to announce the death of Polyeucte, he re- 
duced the narration to a simple announcement. In Horace, the 
news of the battle becomes a very important and dramatic inci- 


a ee ee ee 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 407 


dent of the action. While the narration of the deed of violence 
was reduced in length, it became an integral part of the action. 
In Rodogune, two lines inform the audience of the death of 
Seleucus which occurs between the acts; but the death causes 
the development of the plot in the fifth act. The question as 
to whether such incidents are on or off the stage is far less 
important than the question as to whether they are an integral 
part of the plot and are the causes of emotions which lead to 
further action. Corneille had solved the latter problem, and 
left the former to future generations. 

French tragedy has been severely criticized for placing such 
actions behind the scenes; but when one considers all the cir- 
cumstances which led the playwrights to adhere to this tradi- 
tional handling of such scenes, the practice is at least explicable. 
Narrative passages were still considered an ornament. Tragedy 
was still poetry. The art of acting was in its infancy. Stage 
pictures were practically unknown. The playing space, en- 
croached upon by spectators on the stage, was small. It is very 
difficult, even in a modern theatre, to keep a death scene from 
being comic. It would have been doubly difficult in such 
circumstances. The rule of decorum would have been quickly 
set aside had such scenes produced a dramatic effect on the stage 
of the period. 

After the Cid, Corneille had written Horace, Cinna, and 
Polyeucte. ‘The plots of these tragedies are dramatic but are not 
overloaded with complex action. Before composing his next 
tragedy, Rodogune (1644), Corneille had produced two come- 
dies, Le Menteur and La Suite du Menteur, both drawn from 
Spanish plays with involved plots and remarkable situations. 
It is not strange, therefore, to find him working up to a very 
powerful situation in the fifth act of Rodogune, even though he 
had to sacrifice sympathy for his heroine by so doing. 

Cleopatra has twin sons, Antiochus and Seleucus, both of 
whom are in love with the Princess Rodogune. Cleopatra has 
murdered her husband and she promises her sons that she will de- 
clare the one who slays Rodogune the eldest and heir to the 


408 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


throne. Rodogune then counters with the dramatic but inhu- 
man proposition that she will marry the son who kills his mother. 
At the opening of the fifth act, Cleopatra has caused the death 
of Seleucus and plans to poison Antiochus and Rodogune with 
the marriage chalice. Antiochus is about to drink when he 
learns of the death of his brother by “a hand that was dear” 
to them. Was it the hand of his bride or his mother? Cleo- 
patra accuses Rodogune of:the foul deed. Antiochus is about 
to drink when Rodogune bids him beware the chalice prepared 
by the queen. Cleopatra seizes the cup in desperation and 
drinks. The poison works and she is led away to die. 

Here is one of the few stage pictures in French classical 
tragedy and more action than usual on the stage. The power of 
the scene is undeniable. In its way it is the most striking fifth 
act of the century; but it helped to make Corneille exaggerate 
the importance of incidents and complex situations. From this 
time on, involved, theatrical plots became the aim of play- 
wrights until the reaction set in with the advent of Racine. ~ 

Also the influence of Spanish drama, of classical comedy and 
of tragi-comedy tended to make tragic plots of extreme com- 
plexity. Corneille’s Héraclius (1647) is a glaring example of 
this type of play. The situation is so intricate as to be utterly 
incomprehensible to the spectator; and even the reader, who 
can take his own time to study the intricacies of the plot, must 
be furnished with many explanatory details before he can com- 
prehend what is happening. These details are so numerous that 
even the half of them cannot be quoted here, but an idea of their 
complexity may be gained from the following statement oc- 
curring in the text at the end of the second scene: “In these two 
scenes, Héraclius passes. for Martian, and Martian passes for 
Léonce. Héraclius knows his own identity but Martian does 
not know his own identity.” The spectator is entirely misled. 
Incident is piled upon incident to such an extent that, as Cor- 
neille admitted, the situation can be understood only by reflection 
after the play is finished. 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 409 


Between the complexity of Héraclius and the simplicity of 
Cinna, there were tragedies of all degrees. D’Aubignac advo- 
cated simple plots for tragedy, although he did not know how to 
arrive at this ideal without reducing drama to narration. Racine 
solved the problem by placing the tragic conflict in the mind of 
one character. Instead of having two or more characters of 
equal importance arrayed on opposite sides of a question, he 
tends to subordinate everything to a mental struggle of one 
person. The Corneillian hero rarely hesitates, almost never 
weakens in his intention. He overcomes obstacle after obstacle. 
So far as will power and strength of character are concerned, 
he is one-sided. He develops in strength alone. In order to 
show this development, Corneille had to introduce many events 
and complications into his plots. Only when he produced a 
Cinna, whose purpose and intentions are not fixed from the 
beginning, was he able to reduce the number of incidents in his 
story. 

Racine’s characters show human weakness as well as strength 
when placed in tragic circumstances. Thus one event employed 
by Racine offers a double opportunity for action. His hero 
vacillates between the two courses open to him. He attempts 
to follow the right course and then finds that he cannot. The 
peripeteia furnished by the incident brings in its wake a psycho- 
logical peripeteia on which the dramatic interest is centred. 
Racinian characters have some of Hamlet’s indecision which 
causes suspense and enables the playwright to show both sides 
of the situation. The conflict of passions against will power is 
ever present| and is equally balanced. The pendulum swings 
back and forth. In Corneille’s tragedies the pendulum swings 
generally in one direction. His characters do not vacillate in 
a human, and at the same time, dramatic manner. Corneille 
complicates the situation and the plot. The psychology of his 
characters is not complex. Racine complicates the psychology 
of his characters. His plots are not complex, with the exception 
of the plot of Bajazet (1667), which is built on Corneillian 
lines. 


410 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


For this reason, Racine’s plays from Andromaque on are psy- 
chological studies in dramatic form in which events are important 
only as they influence the characters. His Bérénice is the most 
striking example of the simplicity of plot and situation em- 
ployed by him. Throughout the whole play the question as to 
whether Tite will marry Bérénice or send her away is discussed. 
The dramatic struggle goes on in the hearts of the two lovers 
as they waver between the sacrifice of their love and the sac- 
rifice of the interest of the state. The vacillation produces the 
suspense. 

Racine chose naturally the late point of attack. The dramatic 
situation is already in existence when the curtains are drawn 
apart on his first act. His expositions are easily understood 
and are very dramatic. Corneille had to explain a complex 
situation and inform the audience as best he could how this 
situation arose. Racine only has to have his principal char- 
acters explain how they fell into their tragic state of mind. They 
_ must confess that they are faced by a psychological problem. 
The very act of confession is dramatic because it bares their 
inmost souls. His hero must make a decision; and whichever 
course is followed, tragedy is likely to result. Andromaque 
must either betray her love and respect for her dead husband 
by marrying Pyrrhus or else allow her child to be put to death. 
Phédre must choose between succumbing to her passion for 
Hippolyte and remaining an unhappy, though faithful woman. 
She must choose between the banishment of the innocent Hip- 
polyte and seeing him the husband of another woman. The 
drama lies in the struggle first to decide what ought to be done, 
then in trying to do it. 

French: classical tragedy attained the highest degree of 
dramatic artistry and beauty in Racine’s Phédre, in which he 
applied his system of playwriting with greatest success. 

Act I. Hippolyte tells Théraméne that he loves Aricie, but 
that his father, Thésée, does not wish him to marry her because 
she belongs to an ill-starred family. Thésée has long been ab- 
sent, no one knows where. His wife, Phédre, who has been per- 


ae ‘ 
Ce ee a ae er ae 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY AII 


secuting Hippolyte, her step-son, is ill with some unknown mortal 
malady. Hippolyte resolves to seek his father. 

In a scene of unsurpassed dramatic power, Phédre confesses 
to her nurse, (Enone, the cause of her illness. Restless, she has 
risen from her darkened couch and sought the sunlight. Robed 
in all her gorgeous, queenly attire, she walks with faltering steps. 
Even the jewels and veils weigh upon her too heavily. For the 
last time she has come to look upon the sun. She longs for 
death but refuses to explain why. (none exhorts her to live 
and not to give up the royal power to Hippolyte. She trembles 
when that name is spoken. Only when (Enone upbraids her for 
her silence, does she confess. Instead of hating her step-son, 
she loves him. All her persecution, her banishment of him, was 
a vain attempt to smother her passion. Every line of this expo- 
sition is intensely dramatic and tragic. 

News comes that her husband is dead. The crafty nurse rec- 
ognizes what this means. Aricie is now an aspirant to the throne 
at Athens. No blame attaches to Phédre’s passion now. She 
must win Hippolyte; and they together will oppose Aricie’s as- 
pirations. Phédre consents. 

Act II. Aricie is told by her confidante that Hippolyte wishes 
to see her. He has never told her of his love; but Isméne assures 
her that Hippolyte’s coldness is feigned, and she is happy in 
the thought that he may love her. When he appears, he bids 
her go to Athens and reign. Then, unable to control himself 
longer, he confesses that he loves her. Before she can admit 
her love for him, Phédre sends word that she wishes to speak 
with Hippolyte. Aricie and Isméne withdraw. 

Phédre is brought face to face with Hippolyte—the object of 
her passion. She upbraids herself for her cruelty toward him. 
She mourns for her dead husband, but gradually her words be- 
come tinged with double meaning. Her grief for Thésée be- 
comes a veiled avowal of love for his son. Outraged, Hippolyte 
cries out: “Have you forgotten that Thésée is my father and 
your husband!” She replies: “Why should you fancy I have 
lost remembrance, and am regardless of mine honor?” Hip- 


4AI2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART. 


polyte asks her pardon for misconstruing words of innocence. 
He starts to go. She suddenly throws herself on her knees and 
pours out her passion unrestrainedly. She bids him slay her. 
As he remains motionless, stunned by this horror, she draws his 
sword and seeks to slay herself. The nurse stays her hand and 
leads her away, still clinging to the sword. 

Théraméne enters with the news that the son of Phédre has 
been elected King of Athens. “A faint rumor meanwhile whis- 
pers that Thésée is not dead.” 

Act III. Phédre, bitterly unhappy, is brooding over the dis- 
grace of her confession, when CEnone brings the news that her 
husband is still alive. Her position is unbearable. She knows 
that in some way Thésée will hear of her love for his son—a 
love once again incestuous. Death is her only means of escape 
from disgrace. But the nurse rouses her to a plan of action, 
saying : 


Venture to accuse him first, 
As guilty of the charge which he may bring 
This day against you. Who can say ’tis false? 
All tells against him: in your hands his sword 
Happily left behind, your present trouble, 
Your past distress, your warnings to his father, 
His exile which your earnest prayers obtained. 


Phédre revolts for a moment, then humanly accedes to this plan. 
Thésée and Hippolyte appear. Phédre evades the embrace of 
her husband as unfit to meet his caresses, and leaves. He turns 
to Hippolyte for an explanation of Phédre’s strange welcome; 
but his son replies that Phédre alone can solve the mystery, that 
he asks only to disappear for ever. Thésée finally demands to 
know who has betrayed him, why he was not avenged. Hip- 
polyte is silent. Thésée goes to Phédre to demand the truth. 

Act IV. When the, curtain discloses the scene, (none has 
finished her lying accusation against Hippolyte, and holds forth 
his sword as evidence of the truth of her words. Thésée believes 


> ~~ 


a a a eee 


ry 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 413 


her and faces Hippolyte with the story which cannot be refuted, 
unless Hippolyte accuses Phédre, which he will not stoop to do. 
In vain he tries to defend himself, tries to show the impossibility 
of it all because of his love for Aricie. Thésée brands his words 
as lies, accusing him of adultery and incest, and orders him 
away from his wrath. When Hippolyte has gone, the guilty 
Phédre enters and intercedes for the innocent boy. Thésée tells 
her he will pray to Neptune to destroy his son, who seeks to de- 
fend himself by confessing that he loves Aricie. These words 
strike Phedre like a thunderbolt. Ready to save Hippolyte by 
confessing the frightful truth, now she is dumb. To save him 
for another woman is beyond her power. Left alone with her 
nurse, she pours out upon her the agony of her soul, and, with 
rising anger, curses (Enone for being the cause of her undoing. 

Act V. Hippolyte has told Aricie of the accusation. She asks 
him if he is going to keep silent. He answers that to tell more 
would disgrace his father. They plan to flee together. Hippo- 
lyte departs as Thésée enters. He accuses his son to Aricie. 
She warns him and is close to disclosing the truth. She rouses a 
shadow of doubt in the mind of Thésée. When she has gone he 
demands that CEnone come, so that he may question her alone. 
He learns immediately that CEnone has committed suicide, that 
Phédre is on the verge of madness, but has thrice started to write 
a message to him. The doubt of his son’s guilt increases. He 
cries out that Hippolyte must return and defend himself. Théra- 
mene messengers the death of Hippolyte, dashed from his chariot 
on the rocks, when a monster of the deep frightened the horses. 
Phédre enters and confesses the truth to the grief-stricken father. 
She has taken poison and she dies. 

By making Phédre instead of Hippolyte the central figure of 
the tragedy, Racine was able to produce not only a study of 
passion and jealousy, but also to make the situation much more 
tragic and dramatic. The added circumstance of Hippolyte’s 
love for Aricie is necessary to bring out the complete conception 
of the character of Phédre. This motive is not a mere sub-plot. 
It gives the reason for Phédre’s silence when she knows Hippolyte 


414 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


is going to his doom. A passionate woman would have saved 
him even at the price of confessing her guilt, but a jealous woman 
would act as she does. Were this circumstance suppressed the 
whole psychological development of the character would ring 
false and the play would become only a thriller. 

As the tragedy is constructed, Phédre dominates all other 
characters. Externally the nurse may seem to guide her; but in 
reality GEnone gives voice to one side of Phédre’s complex nature. 
Phédre struggles not against destiny, but against something just 
as unconquerable—herself. She speaks of destiny, but human 
beings who sin unwillingly against moral laws explain their acts 
as due to destiny. Phédre, above all, is human. The tragedy lies 
in the fact that she is fully conscious of her sins and is almost, 


but not quite strong enough to conquer her sinful emotions. 


There, also, lies the drama. The struggle is within her soul. 
External events arouse and keep the struggle at fever heat. 
Every event acts upon her emotions. Every emotion, every 
thought she has involves the other characters in her downfall. 
In that the heroine is fully conscious of the horror of the situa- 
tion, Phédre is more dramatic than Gtdipus Rex, in which (di- 
pus is blind to the circumstances. Cidipus Rex is a remarkable 
example of dramatic technique, but only when the situation is 
plain to the principal character can there be a study of psychol- 
ogy. The dramatic action must at least take place because of 
the hero’s blind acts, as in G@idipus Rex; but better still, it should 
unfold because of the conscious reactions to each situation of the 
dominating character as in Phédre. 

Racine depends very little on concealed or mistaken identity 
to bolster up his plots. His situations are real in the sense that 
the spectator is not deceived in regard to what is happening. 
He states his problem and rarely dodges the issue, although 
in Iphigénie he introduces Eriphyle, an unknown sister of 
Iphigénie, who is sacrificed in her stead, in order to avoid intro- 
ducing Diana as a supernatural means of ending the story. 
Whenever chance does enter his story, it never becomes obtrusive, 
because the events are so overshadowed by the emotions they 


a ae 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY AI5 
arouse. Since events are unimportant in this respect, Racine 
easily observes the unity of place and time. So long as we behold 
a dramatic struggle in the mind of a person, we merely wish to 
know first, what has caused the struggle. This forms the exposi- 
tion of Racine’s plays. Secondly, we wish to know what keeps 
up the struggle. It is not so necessary to behold the physical 
action when psychological action in the mind of one person is 
of paramount importance. The one person, however, must be on 
the stage as much as possible, for we must get his reactions to 
any event of the past, or incident off the stage, instantly and at 
first hand. 

Racine, therefore, fails rarely to include the really obligatory 
scenes within the scope of the vision of the spectator. Yet it will 
always be a matter of regret that he began the fourth act of 
Phédre after the accusation of Hippolyte made by CEnone to 
Thésée. One misses the dramatic moment when Thésée first 
hears the story of the supposed guilt of his son. One would like 
to know how (Enone began, how she led up to the accusation, 
how she was able to make her lie plausible. Yet, to Racine’s 
glory, let it be said that he did not allow decorum or any other 
classical rule to keep him from bringing ail characters face to 
face in this tragedy in scenes which require a master hand not 
to become shocking and merely horrible. Some day the story of 
Phedra may be dramatized again, so that use can be made of 
the richness of the art of the modern theatre with its colors and 
form and lights. Yet Racine’s Phédre will remain a work of 
highest art so long as jealousy and uncontrollable passion exist 
in human nature. 

Racine’s masterful handling of classic tragedy proves that 
certain subjects gain dramatic power by being treated according 
to the laws of classical technique. The Frenchman of the classical 
centuries made the mistake of believing that all dramatic stories 
were improved by being poured into the narrow classical mould. 
The Spanish drama, French comedy, and the contemporary novels 
furnished the dramatists with a complete assortment of theatrical 
Situations and coups de thédtre. Plots of the most amazing 


416 - THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


complexity were more familiar to the Frenchman of the seven- 
teenth century than to the average theatre-goer of today. Much 
of the stuff that melodrama was made of is in the French classical 
tragedies. Disguises, long-lost children, letters lost and found, 
all were on the stage. Instead of lacking incidents and com- 
plications, French tragedy was too full of them. Only master 
technicians like Racine, and sometimes Corneille, could compress 
their material within the limits of the form, without making the 
play either difficult to follow or wordy because of lengthy ex- 
planations. The usual love of complexity and coups de thédtre 
was the undoing of the dramatists. They tried to pour too much 
into a mould that is unsuited to complex plots and many events. 

The dramatists of the latter part of the seventeenth century 
and early eighteenth century realized that tragedy was losing 
_its power. They believed that the decline was due to simplicity 
of plot and lack of events. La Grange-Chancel set about pro- 
ducing tragedies on melodramatic lines; and Crébillon added 
the element of horror to his situations. These melodramatic ele- 
ments were not a new development. They existed in Hardy’s 
plays, in novels, in Spanish plays, and were employed by such 
writers as Thomas Corneille, and even by his illustrious brother 
in Rodogune. 

The melodramatic and the horrible were employed by Crébillon 
as the main interest in the play, while the psychological element 


practically disappeared. Society in France was so ultra-refined ~ 


that plain, unvarnished tragedies of blood, crime, and incest 
would have been shocking. Therefore, Crébillon used mistaken 
and concealed identity in order to build his plots in such a way 
that the rules of good taste were observed. His plots, as a result, 
are complicated. Much must be told in the exposition, and 
narrative expositions are difficult to follow. Much must also be 
concealed from the audience. The spectator does not know — 
enough of the why and the wherefore to be able to grasp the 
situations as a whole. One does not know what situations actu- 
ally exist and what only apparently exist. 

Thus in Rhadamiste et Zénobie the heroine is loved by her — 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 417 


husband, her brother-in-law, and her father-in-law. She believes 
that her husband is dead. She loves her brother-in-law. She 
knows her own identity, but he does not know who she is. 
Numerous other complications make the psychological study of 
character impossible. No one knows what a woman thinks or 
does in such circumstances. Crébillon’s plays are not good 
tragedies because there are so many curious events in them that 
the intellectual element is obscured. They are not good melo- 
dramas because there are not enough curious events on the stage 
to hold the spectator breathless. The late point of attack cuts 
off half the plot. Melodrama must be seen, not heard about in 
speeches of messengers. 

The first important plea for a modification of the rules of 
tragedy was made by Houdar de la Motte in prefaces to his 
plays. He was in favor of liberty, especially in regard to the 
unities of time and place, in order to introduce more action on 
the stage. He realized that these rules made exposition difficult 
and deprived the spectator of the emotional pleasure of wit- 
nessing many striking scenes which in classical tragedy take 
place before the late point of attack, or between the acts, or be- 
hind the scenes. He took the sound position that scenes which 
can be dramatic should not be sacrificed to the unities. 

He saw no reason why spoken tragedy should not appeal to 
the eye as musical tragedy did at the Opéra, where remarkable 
scenic effects were in strong contrast to the vestibule of a palace, 
that eternal setting of classical drama. He called attention to 
the effectiveness of the nuptial ceremony in the fifth act of 
Rodogune with the large number of people on the stage and with 
the poisoned cup passed from hand to hand. In all French 
tragedy he could cite only one other such scene; and that one is 
in Athalie. This insistence upon stage pictures as a legitimate 
part of dramatic art is very striking at this relatively early date. 
Only in operas were scenery and groupings of characters em- 
ployed for dramatic effect. The presence of the spectators on 
the stage in the Théadtre Francais narrowed the playing space 
to an area about twelve feet square. The proximity of the spec- 


418 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


tators rendered the art of acting difficult. The actors had to be 
constantly on their guard lest some action, such as falling on 
the knees, would become laughable. There was nothing left for 
them but a recital of lines. Everything seemed to conspire to 
make tragedy a conversation under a chandelier in five acts. 

La Motte also suggested that long speeches be cut down and 
monologues used sparingly. He did not attempt to drive out 
verse; but he held the sensible view that since there undoubtedly 
were men who could construct a good play and who were not 
poets, therefore tragedies in prose should be acceptable. He 
was in favor of complex plots as oppposed to the simple plot, 
because they held the attention more easily by their variety of 
incident. 

In spite of his advocacy of all these liberties he was most con- 
- servative in his practice. In theory he was a century in advance 
of his age. Many of his ideas were repeated by Hugo in his 
Préface de Cromwell. Hugo, however, made use of these liber- 
ties in writing his plays. The only real advance in playwriting 
made by La Motte was his elimination of the confidant. His 
cast of Inés de Castro is delightfully free from this walking ear- 
trumpet, which, when it speaks, voices platitudes. As La Motte 
says, scenes in which confidants appear are almost always dis- 
guised monologues. Racine had made his confidants much more 
important in the plot than they generally were in contemporary 
tragedy; but La Motte’s attack upon this undramatic role and 
the practical application of the doctrine in his Inés de Castro 
are landmarks in the evolution of French tragedy. 

The use of the confidant was one of the greatest handicaps 
under which these playwrights had voluntarily placed them- 
selves. The confidant took over certain functions of the chorus 
when the choral réle had lost its picturesque and dramatic func- 
tions. This character was a great convenience; but it was such 
a convenience that its rdle was abused. The scenes of narrative 


exposition, of elegy, of undramatic emotions were constantly — 
staged between a principal and a confidant. The Greek chorus © 
was always picturesque and often was employed to produce ~ 


a Oe ee ee 


ee Se ee 


—e ee 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 419 


dramatic stage pictures. The opening of Sophocles’ Gidipus Rex 
with the citizens of Thebes kneeling in supplication to the god- 
like hero forms a picture which is essentially dramatic. Such 
scenes were impossible when a single confidant had assumed the 
choral réole. 

Voltaire opened his Gidife with a secondary character and a 
confidant ; but he introduced spectacle in the second scene of the 
act, in which “the door of the temple opens and the high priest 
appears in the midst of the people.” Racine himself had re-intro- 
duced a chorus on the stage in Esther and had employed the de- 
vice of opening doors to disclose a new scene in Athalie. Thus 
Voltaire was not entirely an innovator; but this imitation of 
Racine in these particulars foreshadows his future activity in 
introducing more spectacle on the French stage. 

Voltaire’s stay in England (1726-1729) brought him in con- 
tact with a theatre and a drama which had undergone a consider- 
able classical influence, but were still highly romantic in com- 
parison with theatrical art in France. Although he opposed the 
views of La Motte, on his return from England he was firmly 
convinced that more action and spectacle should be introduced 
into classical tragedies. 

In his Discours sur la Tragédie he admits that French tragedy 
is conversation rather than the representation of an event. The 
excessive delicacy of the French forces playwrights to narrate 
events which they would like to expose to the eyes. The presence 
of spectators on the stage makes almost every action impracti- 
cable and causes the scenery rarely to be fitting to the play. 
The ghost of a Pompey or a Brutus could not appear surrounded 
by spectators ready to scoff at the unusual. The body of Marcus 
could not be brought before Cato, his father, as it is in the effec- 
tive scene in Addison’s Cato. The parterre would howl. Ladies 
would turn their eyes away. A large number of characters is 
impossible on the French stage. Thus the effective scene of the 
conspiracy in Otway’s Venice Preserved had to be dropped by 
La Fosse in his French adaptation, entitled Manlius. 

The scene of Antony’s oration in Julius Cesar had delighted 


420 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Voltaire and he pointed out that the Greeks had hazarded just 
as daring actions. He did not wish to have the stage become a 
scene of carnage; but he did not see why certain situations, which 
seemed disgusting and horrible to the French, could not furnish 
a pleasure as yet unexperienced if handled artistically. He felt 
that the laws of decorum were not so important as the law of the 
three unities. To break the unity of action is to admit the in- 
ability to fill up a play with a single deed. To disregard the uni- 
ties of place and time is to harm verisimilitude. But a horrible 
spectacle does not shock verisimilitude. In order to stage it, a 
great genius would have to put true grandeur by his verses into 
an action which would otherwise be disgusting. 

So long as verisimilitude and the poetical, literary element were 
preserved, Voltaire was ready to experiment with new spectacu- 
“ lar effects. He was ready to appeal to the eye as did the English, 
to pay more attention to the action; but he never swerved from 
the idea that “it is much more difficult to write well than to put 
on the stage assassinations, torture wheels, gallows, witches, and 
ghosts.” 

The stage direction appearing at the beginning of his play 
Brutus (1730) shows his first attempts to introduce scenery and 
spectacle: “The stage represents a part of the house of the con- 
suls on the Tarpeian rock. The temple of the Capitol is seen 
in the background. The senators are assembled between the 
temple and the house, before the altar of Mars. Brutus and 
Valerius Publicola, consuls, are presiding over, the assembly: 
the Senators are ranged in a semicircle. Lictors with their 
fasces stand behind the senators.” During the play the scene 
changes, or is supposed to change, to the interior of the house 
of Brutus and an apartment in the house of the consuls. In 
the fourth act the scenery at the rear opens, and Brutus is dis- 
closed in a melodramatic manner. While Voltaire does not 
actually break the law of the unity of place, which he interpreted 
to mean a whole city, yet real changes or even supposed changes 
of place were as unusual as the spectacular picture with which 
the play opens. 


ee ee a ee 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 421 


The Senecan ghost calling for vengeance had long ago been 
discarded in France. This same ghost had entered English drama 
in the Renaissance, and had appeared dramatically in Hamlet. 
Voltaire had been greatly stirred by this scene when he saw it 
acted in London, and determined to employ the ghost on the 
French stage. In Eriphyle (1732) the ghost of Amphiaraus ap- 
pears in the fourth act and bids his son Alcméon avenge his death 
at the hands of Eriphyle, his wife, and mother of Alcméon. In 
this manner Eriphyle i is prevented from marrying Alcméon, who 
turns out to be her son. Voltaire was surprised that this very 
decorous and classical ghost, which appears in broad daylight 
merely for the sake of appearing, did not have the dramatic effect 
of the ghost in Hamlet. He did not realize that it is one thing te 
see a ghost on the stage and quite another to have the appearance 
of a ghost set in motion a psychological conflict in the soul of 
aman. Voltaire never understood why the technique of Shake- 
speare was dramatic. He only realized that there were effective 
scenes in Shakespeare. As a result, under Voltaire’s hand these 
scenes and situations become, at best, strong coups de thédtre. 

His Mort de César (played publicly in 1743) gave Voltaire 
an opportunity to imitate the scene of Antony’s oration over the 
dead body of Cesar which was disclosed to view. The audience 
was not greatly impressed by this pale and distant imitation, 
which retains only the external trappings of the dramatic original. 
When the sound of a cannon announced in Adélaide du Guesclin 
(1734) that Nemours had been put to death, and when Nemours 
appeared with his arm in a sling, the audience was entirely recal- 
citrant. Perhaps the parterre also chuckled because Nemours 
was not really dead after all. Not until 1765, when the play 
was revived, was a French audience willing to have climaxes 
brought about by sounds. A few months afterwards the three 
knocks at the door were to cause the climax of the Philosophe 
sans le Savoir. 

Gresset, under the influence of English drama, produced his 
Edouard III (1740) in which a murder takes place in plain view 
of the audience. Voltaire had not dared to stage a murder even 


422 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


in his Mort de César. Two years after, however, in Mahomet, 
Voltaire has the scenery open and disclose an altar. Séide “goes 
_ behind the altar where Zopire is” and strikes him down; a mo- 
ment after Zopire appears, leaning on the altar, having risen 
from behind the altar where he has received the blow. Zopire 
dies as the act ends. Voltaire thus stages a murder according 
to the rules of decorum; but at least he is putting on the stage 
everything he dares at the time when theatrical audiences are 
vociferous in their condemnation of novelties which could be 
made ridiculous. Death scenes always border dangerously upon 
the comic even when played with the greatest art and care. 
According to Voltaire the French audience did not want “new 
pleasures.” He had to introduce new effects with great caution. 

Sémiramis (1748) with its carefully devised and spectacular 
setting and stage pictures, its four changes of scene, and the ap- 
pearance of a ghost, resembles in many ways a melodramatic 
opera. Concealed identity and recognitions form the basis of its 
plot. Voltaire employed such situations with more artistry than 
did Crébillon, but he none the less accepted them as material 
to furnish coups de thédtre. Even in his Mort de César he at- 
tempted to make the situation more poignant by having Brutus 
discovered to be the child of Cesar. Whether or not this height- 
ens the tragedy, it produced a totally different play since the 
murder of Cesar is made a problem of parricide. In Mérope 
a mother is about to murder an unrecognized son. In Sémi- 
ramis the queen, with the help of Assur, has murdered her hus- 
band Ninus. She falls in love with a brave young warrior, 
Arsace, who turns out to be Ninias, her son. The shade of Ninus 
orders Ninias to avenge his death. The son, thinking to kill 
Assur, slays his mother in the darkness of the tomb. The play 
is magnificent, spectacular melodrama, filled with complications 
and coups de thédtre in every scene. It speaks to the eye and 
to the ear and to the emotions, but not to the soul. 

Although Louis XV gave a large amount of money for the 
mounting of the play, the spectators on the stage interfered with 
the effectiveness of the production at the first performance. 


FRENCH CLASSICAL TRAGEDY Ago. 


They were removed for the succeeding performances; but the 
problem of seats on the stage still remained, as this reform was 
only temporary. When Voltaire’s Oreste was produced in Paris 
it was necessary to leave out the cries of Clytemnestra, which 
had made a great effect when the play was given at Versailles on 
a stage which, though small, was free of spectators. Voltaire was 
therefore untiring in his efforts to clear the stage for scenery and 
action; and finally in 1759, through the generous subvention of 
10,000 livres given by the Comte de Lauraguais, the comedians 
agreed to remove the seats. At last the stage was cleared for 
action and spectacle. 


CHAPTER XIV 
TEARFUL COMEDY. DOMESTIC DRAMA 


HE immediate successors of Moliére had a rich heritage; 

and, as is generally the case with heirs, they were content 
to enjoy their blessings without attempting to develop their for- 
tune along new lines. In one respect, however, the evolution 
of the technique of comedy is patent. The playwrights show a 
marked tendency to satirize contemporary manners. Dancourt 
even introduced actual events into his plays. De Visé treated 
subjects based upon local incidents and characters. The farce 
comedies produced at the Théatre Italien and later at the Théatre 
de la Foire were up-to-date in their realism. As many of Moliére’s 
successors begin their careers as playwrights in the$e minor thea- 
tres, it is not surprising to find them producing plays for the 
Comédie Francaise which contain realistic satire of contemporary 
conditions. 

This cynical realism brought forth comedies of contemporary 
manners, in which the satire is more concrete and less universal. 
It also had a direct influence on the ending of comedy. The plot 
is worked out to what seems a logical conclusion, instead of end- 
ing with a manufactured dénouement. In Dancourt’s Chevalier 
ad la Mode, the gay, deceiving Chevalier is unmasked finally by 
his own mistakes, after having lied himself out of many embar- 
rassing situations. 

Le Sage produced in Turcaret a notable example of drama- 
turgic skill in that generation. The play deals with the machina- 
tions of an unscrupulous and amorous farmer general, duped by 
a frivolous baroness, who, in turn, is the plaything of a chevalier 
who extracts from her the money she cajoles from Turcaret. 
In the end two servants triumph in this cynical game of love and 
high finance. The dénouement is not only dramatically effective 

424 


TEARFUL COMEDY 425 


and bitterly logical, but also realistic in view of the prevailing 
social conditions. 

The reaction in the form of sentiment or sensibility against 
this cynical tone was bound to come and it appeared sporadically 
even before the Regency. La Bruyére had wondered why people 
laugh freely but are ashamed to weep in the theatre. This was 
in 1688. By 1733 La Chaussée began to produce comédie 
larmoyanie (tearful comedy) in which humorous scenes are epi- 
sodic. However seriously we moderns may interpret certain 
scenes in Moliére’s plays, he never devised a situation or wrote 
a line that was a bid for tears. In praising the Misanthrope 
in his Art Poétique, Boileau reaffirmed the rule of the separation 
of tragedy and comedy, which he styled ‘the enemy of sighs 
and tears.” But sighs entered comedy bringing tears in their 
wake. 

An early example of the introduction of sentimental scenes into 
comedy is found in Baron’s Andrienne (1703), an adaptation of 
Terence’s Andria. For the first three acts the Andrienne is prac- 
tically a translation in verse of the original. Andria is distinctly 
a comedy; but like so many Latin plays, its story is founded on 
a romantic situation of a clandestine love match between a young 
man and a long-lost child. As usual with Terence, the romance 
and sentiment inherent in the plot are carefully kept off the 
stage together with the heroine. The scenes selected for repre- 
sentation are humorous. Baron, however, brings the heroine 
on the stage in the fourth act. She is recognized by Criton in 
a scene which is not comic. Then she laments her state of in- 
jured innocence to Dave and finally kneels before Chrémés, her 
unknown father, begging him to recognize the validity of her 
marriage contract with Pamphile. Chrémeés is strangely agitated 
by the voix du sang, which will talk so loudly in sentimental 
comedy of later years. These scenes of sentiment and tears are 
more restrained than in later comedy; but their introduction by 
Baron shows the tendency to represent the romance and sensi- 
bility inherent in the plots of Latin comedy. 

Destouches, even in his early plays, showed a tendency to 


426 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


moralize and to react against the cynicism of contemporary 
comedy. In England, from 1696 when Cibber’s Love’s Last Shift 
had introduced sentimental comedy to an audience which wept 
“honest tears,” there was a marked trend toward the drama of 
sensibility. From 1717 to 1723 Destouches lived in England and 
was one of the first Frenchmen to find something to admire in 
English plays. In 1736 he adapted Addison’s Drummer for the 
French stage under the title Le Tambour Nocturne; and he 
praised English drama in the preface. How much or how con- 
sciously he was influenced by the trend of sensibility in England 
is hard to tell; but his sojourn in London would tend to strengthen 
the tendency toward moralizing which he had already shown. 
His Philosophe Marié (1727), founded upon his own secret mar- 
riage, is a serious comedy. In the Envieux he has one of the 
characters speak of this play as one which causes “serious emo- 
tions” and which breathes “honor, modesty and virtue,” and 
which contains “serious characters.” 

The real transition between comedy and comédie larmoyante 
is found in Destouches’ Glorieux produced just a year before 
La Chaussée’s Fausse Antipathie (1733). The plot is partly 
based upon a romantic situation of a father who has lost his 
fortune and who has two children who have not seen him for 
years. His son is proud and pompous. The daughter does not 
know who were her parents and has been brought up in a con- 
vent as a child not of gentle birth. At the opening of the play, 
she is half servant, half companion to the daughter of a newly 
rich bourgeois, who shows her too marked attentions, which she 
virtuously rejects. She is loved by the son of the household; 
and in spite of her supposedly humble condition, he offers her 
honorable marriage in scenes which are distinctly of the senti- 
mental type. Her brother, unknown to her, is in love with, or 
at least willing to marry the daughter of the rich bourgeois. 

The humor of the play is furnished by the overweening pride 
of the young Tufiére, by the bourgeois, and also by the inevitable 
valet. The humor outweighs the sentiment. Yet there are sev- 
eral scenes of emotion such as the recognition between the father 


TEARFUL COMEDY 427 


and daughter; and the scenes in which the father breaks his 
son’s pride and brings about his repentance are by no means 
entirely comic. To transform such plays into tearful comedy 
it is only necessary to emphasize more strongly the romantic, 
sentimental elements of the plot and make the humorous scenes 
episodic. 

This is precisely what was done by La Chaussée. One of the 
episodes in Regnard’s Démocrite (1700) concerns Strabo whose 
wife drove him away by her shrewish manners. After many years 
they meet and fall in love with each other, until they discover 
their real relationship, when they promptly despise each other. 
Finally, they are reconciled, deciding after all that they may as 
well live together. Where Regnard saw cynical humor, La 
Chaussée saw material for sentimental comedy. In the Fausse 
Antipathie, Léonor and Damon fall in love with each other. 
Damon is willing to divorce his wife, whom he has not seen since 
the day of his marriage when he fled after a duel. Léonor, the 
virtuous wife, is not willing to divorce her husband, who, she 
learns, is alive after having been believed to be dead. Yet she 
loves Damon deeply. At the end of three acts, they find that 
they are the couple married years ago and separated by the 
unfortunate duel. 

The play was successful. A new kind of drama was recog- 
nized. The usual literary battle ensued as to whether this new 
form was legitimate or not. Comedy had begun to arouse tender 
emotions instead of laughter by presenting a new series of scenes. 
Terence was cited by the defenders of this new kind of drama as 
authority for the procedure of arousing sentiment by the repre- 
sentation of incidents in the lives of ordinary people. However, 
if La Chaussée is to be compared with any classical playwright, 
it is not Terence but Euripides whom he resembles in his choice 
of scenes to be placed on the stage. The situation in the Fausse 
Antipathie is exactly the situation in Euripides’ Helen, when 
Helen and Menelaus meet and do not recognize each other. Ma- 
dame Argant persecutes Marianne not knowing she is her own 
daughter (L’Ecole des Méres). She believes that Marianne is 


428 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the mistress of her husband. In a similar way, Creusa in Jon is 
ready to slay her own child because she believes that he is the 
illegitimate child of her husband. Euripides, Terence and La 
Chaussée founded their plots on the same kind of romantic 
situations of disguises and concealed relationships. Euripides 
chose the scenes which arouse tragic emotions, bordering upon 
sentimentality. La Chaussée selected the same scenes, but 
aroused only sentimental emotions. Terence disregarded such 
scenes and represented the situations which arouse laughter. 
Only super-sentimentalists of the eighteenth century, whose sensi- 
bility could be excited by the sight of a dead donkey, could really 
malign Terence by asserting that his plays are the justification 
of tearful comedy. 

The disappearance of the element of comedy and of the comic 
roles of the valet and the soubrette is more or less complete in 
La Chaussée’s plays, until in Mélanide there is no humorous line 
or role. In all his dramas the comic is episodic. He presents 
problems of family life and marriage. He differs from modern 
writers of serious drama in the fact that he is prone to surround 
his problems with the romantic atmosphere of concealed relation- 
ships of people who have changed their names. Thus the problem 
is generally non-existent, if the truth be known. 

In Mélanide, for instance, the heroine has come to live with 
Dorisée. Meélanide’s nephew, Darviane, has fallen in love with 
Rosalie, Dorisée’s daughter, who is also wooed by the rich Mar- 
quis d’Orvigny. Mélanide agrees to send her nephew away. 
His lack of fortune makes his marriage impossible. Mélanide 
was separated years before from her lover, the Count d’Ormancé, 
by whom she had a child. She sees Orvigny (off-stage) and 
recognizes her former lover, Ormancé. The Count is informed 
by Théodon of Meélanide’s presence; but he refuses to give up 
Rosalie. Mélanide at last allows her supposed nephew to guess 


that he is her illegitimate child. She bids him respect the Count. | ’ 


In a dramatic scene the young man forces the Count to admit 
that he is his father. Father and son then are rivals; but when 


TEARFUL COMEDY 429 


Ormancé finally sees Mélanide, his love for her is revived and 
Rosalie’s hand is bestowed upon their son. 

Much of the technique of these plays depends upon the un- 
veiling of the past, not merely for exposition and dénouement, 
but for the purpose of developing the action. The plot unfolds 
swiftly. The spectator is kept in suspense, theatric though it 
may be, by the air of mystery surrounding certain characters. 
Each disclosure is interesting and brings in its wake a develop- 
ment of the plot. The scenes are carried on by the chief charac- 
ters. The roles of servants are materially reduced. Thus the 
first scene of Mélanide, in which the two mothers are discussing 
the marriage of their children, is more dramatic than it would 
have been had the situation been explained in the usual manner 
by secondary characters. 

La Chaussée believed that plays should be a series of emo- 
tional crises of sentiment. But they are not studies of real 
problems of marriage and family life. Their plots are too com- 
plicated and the situations are too. strange. The mistakes in 
identity are often trumped up. The characters are not suffi- 
ciently motivated. Mothers dislike their children merely for 
reasons of plot. La Chaussée sometimes has to hurry a character 
off the stage in order that he may not discover the actual state 
of affairs before the fifth act. Thus his plays consist of correct- 
ing external mistakes and delusions under which his characters 
are laboring, instead of solving psychological problems which 
confront most people in married life. 

Supposedly his characters are normal individuals of the upper 
classes. They are respectable and very virtuous. The ingenue 
of unbelievable innocence and virtue is a child of La Chaussée. 
His men and women are persons such as most theatre-goers imag- 
ine themselves to be; but they are in curious situations in which 
normal people almost never find themselves. 

His plays were successful because they presented scenes which 
aroused sentiment and caused tears that were not hot or bitter, 
and because the characters seemed to be more like ordinary citi- 
zens than did the heroes and heroines of tragedy. Tearful comedy 


430 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


also differed from contemporary tragedy in its dénouement which 
was happy, and in its general tone, which was sentimental, not 
tragic. But the plots, the scenes represented on the stage, and 
the construction of tearful comedy resemble the technique of 
the contemporary tragedy. La Chaussée was an eighteenth-cen- 
tury Euripides. 

Gresset’s plays maintained the serious tone. His Méchant, 
inspired by Congreve’s Double Dealer, is a rather sombre com- 
edy, while his Sidnei is a study of a romantic hero meditating 
suicide, perhaps inspired by Hamlet. The French were becoming 
fairly well acquainted with English drama, through reviews and 
excerpts from plays in journals and the free translation of Eng- 
lish plays by La Place, Patu, Bocage and others. 

La Place presented the English arguments against the unities 
in the preface to his Thédtre Anglais (1745). He advocated more 
action, more attention to scenic details and less narration in the 
French theatre. He suggested that the same liberties allowed in 
opera be permitted in classical tragedy. Had his ideas been 
followed, romantic tragedy would have resulted; but bourgeois 
tragedy and the drame were the products of English influence 
at this time. It was not Shakespeare or Dryden, but Lillo and 
Moore who furnished the models for French bourgeois drama. 

On the third day of April, 1792, a play entitled The Lamen- 
table and True Tragedy of M. Arden of Feversham in Kent was 
entered on the Stationers’ register and was published anony- 
mously, probably after having been acted seven years before. 
It was a domestic tragedy founded upon an incident recounted 
by Holinshed in his Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. 
As a work of dramatic art, the play has little to commend it. 
The author follows the source very carefully, almost slavishly. 
From a less dramatic passage in the same Chronicles, Shakespeare 
constructed his Macbeth; but the author of Arden of Feversham 
did not aim to do more than to produce “a naked tragedy,” as 
he calls it in the epilogue. In stark realism the play stands apart 
from the majority of contemporary tragedies which presented 
heroes of high rank and not ordinary citizens. 


—— SS 


DOMESTIC DRAMA 431 


Several plays of this type have been preserved, such as A York- 
shire Tragedy (1608), A Warning for Fair Women (1599), and 
Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness. Others have been 
lost. The number of plays based on contemporary incident seems 
to have been small; but Arden of Feversham was an important 
step in the development of modern dramatic art because of its 
realistic and serious treatment of a situation involving bourgeois 
life and characters. 

Alice Arden is in love with a certain Mosbie and plots to slay 
her husband as the play opens. After repeated attempts in which 
she and ruffians hired by her and Mosbie are unsuccessful, Arden 
is finally murdered by them in his own home while playing 
cards. The guilty lovers and their servants are apprehended 
and punished. Far too much of the play is given over to the 
attempts on Arden’s life. Too many scenes merely tell a story 
where a modern dramatist would make a study of the motives 
of the crime. This is all*the: more regrettable because the char- 
acter of Alice is drawn with some skill. The scenes between her 
and Arden and those between her and Mosbie are portrayed with 
dramatic effect. She is no lay figure nor bloody villainess, but a 
woman swept along by a passion against which she revolts. She 
is conscious of her sin and her conscience works dramatically. 
Her lover, Mosbie, also shows sparks of life; but Arden himself 
arouses little sympathy or interest. The framework of a modern 
realistic play was at hand, but the playwright was more intent 
on telling the whole story as he found it in Holinshed, than in 
analyzing a situation which will become the basis of countless 
modern problem plays. 

The tendency in comedy to treat domestic problems seriously, 
the tendency in tragedy to get away from heroic, romantic situa- 
tions, the moralizing and sentimental trend of both forms of 
drama combined to produce The London Merchant by Lillo. 
The reaction from the brilliant but cynical comedy of the Res- 
toration was inevitable. Lillo felt that the time had come to 
enlarge “the province of the graver kind of poetry” which had 
dealt with the misfortunes of princes. He suggested that “plays 


432 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


founded on moral tales in private life may be of admirable use 
. . . by stifling vice in its first principles.” He was undoubtedly 
familiar with Arden of Feversham in 1731 for he adapted it 
for the more modern stage in 1736. 

Both plays are “naked tragedies” and “tales of private woe.” 
They are both founded upon fact, and stand apart from con- 
temporary plays as being distinct innovations. .The London 
Merchant probably would not have been written in 1731 had it 
not been preceded by a generation of sentimental comedy. But 
the tragic ending of The London Merchant with the death of 
George Barnwell, the sympathetic hero, differentiates the play 
sharply even from comedy which caused a few honest tears to 
fall in the middle of the play. The hero, a “London ’Prentice 
ruin’d” is far below the social scale of the protagonists of South- 
ern’s Fatal Marriage, Rowe’s Fair Penitent or Otway’s Orphan 
about whom there is a romantic glamour wholly lacking so far as 
Barnwell is concerned. The historian can trace influences which 
produced this play, yet The London Merchant impressed the 
theatre-goers of 1731 as a novelty and as an innovation. It makes 
the same impression today on the reader who has been studying 
the English plays of the period. Not only is the atmosphere of 
the play realistic, but the plot has the simplicity of modern realis- 
tic drama in comparison with the plots of contemporary tragedy 
which generally combined a situation of' criss-cross love affairs 
with a political question. 

The first scene is laid in a room in the house of Thorowgood, 
an upright and highly respected London merchant. The dialogue 
between him and his clerk, Truman, serves to bring out the 
solidity, honor and power for good in the position of a merchant. 
This is followed by a scene between the merchant and his daugh- 
ter, Maria, showing the kindness of Thorowgood as a father and 
the complete understanding between him and his daughter. The 
next scene takes us to the boudoir of the courtezan, Millwood. 
She tells her maid, Lucy, of the acquaintance she has made of 
a certain George Barnwell. On the pretext of having an affair 


7 
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. 
. 
. 
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4 
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DOMESTIC DRAMA 433 


of importance to discuss with him, she has tricked him into 
calling upon her. 

Like the opening of modern realistic plays, these scenes are 
not introduced to give the exposition of the plot, but to create 
atmosphere and to depict the milieux in which the action is to 
unfold. 

The innocent Barnwell arrives and succumbs to the wiles of 
the courtezan, who schemes to have him furnish money by rob- 
bing his employer, Thorowgood. The second act opens with a 
monologue by Barnwell, who informs us that, to the crime of 
guilty love, he has added the crime of theft. His tortured con- 
science is revealed when his brother clerk, Truman, tries to find 
out the cause of his evident unhappiness. But confession would 
betray Millwood whom he loves, not knowing her real character. 
Yet the kindness of his employer brings him to the point of 
avowal; but Thorowgood silences him with the words: “This 
remorse makes thee dearer to me than if thou hadst never of- 
fended; whatever is your fault, of this I’m certain: ’twas harder 
for you to offend than me to pardon.” Millwood and Lucy are 
then received coldly by Barnwell, but she finally wins him back 
by playing upon his pity. She trumps up the false story that she 
has been ruined financially by her guardian and is homeless. 
Barnwell once more steals gold from his employer and gives it 
to her. 

At the beginning of the third act, Thorowgood is asking an 
accounting from his clerks. Truman is ready. Barnwell has 
disappeared. Truman goes to seek him; but he returns with 
a letter from Barnwell confessing the embezzlement. He reads 
this note to Maria, who immediately plans to restore the missing 
sum, so that Barnwell’s crime may remain undiscovered. It is 
now more or less plain that Maria loves Barnwell. The scene then 
changes to Millwood’s house. Lucy describes at length the inter- 
view between Millwood and Barnwell and even quotes dialogue 
from this scene, which should have been acted on the stage. It 
is an obligatory scene and is given in direct discourse and in 
detail in the ballad on which the play is founded. Why an Eng- 


434 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


lish dramatist of the period would merely report the scene is a 
mystery. However, Lucy tells Blunt how Barnwell arrived and 
threw himself on Millwood’s mercy, how she rebuffed him as a 
stranger until he showed her a bag of gold, and how she persuaded 
him to rob and murder his uncle. Partially through fear, Lucy 
decides to prevent the deed, if possible. The next scene reveals 
the uncle’s country seat. Barnwell is hesitating, but his passion 
for Millwood conquers. He dons a mask. His uncle appears. 
Barnwell cannot bring himself to shoot. He drops the pistol. 
His uncle suddenly perceives this masked figure. Fearing dis- 
covery, Barnwell runs him through with his sword. As the uncle 
dies, he asks a blessing upon his nephew and pardon for the 
murderer. These dying words bring instant and lasting re- 
pentance to Barnwell. ; 

When the fourth act opens, Maria has made up the shortage in 
the accounts. Lucy has arrived and has told Thorowgood what 
she knows of Barnwell. The merchant finds difficulty in believ- 
ing her story because Barnwell’s account balances. However, 
he prepares to visit Millwood and face her with the accusation. 
Before he arrives, Barnwell comes in with hands still bloody, 
dazed but repentant. Millwood is furious because he has dared 
to come empty handed. She sends for an officer to arrest him 
as a confessed murderer. When Thorowgood ‘confronts Mill- 
wood, she dissembles very cleverly. She admits Barnwell visited 
her house; but she asserts that he came to see her maid Lucy. 
She leaves the room to get proof of her story. Lucy and the 
officer enter. Millwood returns with a pistol but is overpowered. 
With very effective speeches she denounces society as the cause 
of her moral downfall. She comes very close to justifying, or at 


least to explaining herself. One is reminded of the fallen women — 


on the modern stage. If such speeches are trite today, they 
were new in 1731. Lillo was intent upon his thesis, as well as 
upon the story. 

Indeed, the fifth act, which passes in the prison just before 
the execution of Barnwell and Millwood, presents no great climax 


" 
ee 


DOMESTIC DRAMA 435 


such as always occurs at the end of previous tragedies. The 
scenes present the results of Barnwell’s previous course of action 
as they affect him and those about him. His resignation is digni- 
fied and pathetic without being mawkish. The scene in which 
Maria confesses her love for him is remarkably simple and effec- 
tive, if some allowance is made for the sentimental age. Even in 
the depiction of Millwood, the dramatist has established an 
artistic balance. Had he followed the usual treatment of such 
characters, he would have made her repent, or he might have 
kept her the personification of evil and lust. But Millwood 
neither rants sentimentally nor glories in her crimes. She is 
stunned, overcome by her fate. Mercy is beyond her hope— 
almost beyond her wish. “She goes to death encompassed with 
horror, loathing life, and yet afraid to die; no tongue can tell 
her anguish and despair.” Among contemporary paragons of 
virtue and of injured innocence, and among lustful tragic queens 
Millwood stands out as a real character. She has left a long 
line of descendants on the modern stage, beginning as far back 
as Marwood in Lessing’s Miss Sara Sampson down to Shaw’s 
Mrs. Warren. 

The language of the play is overwrought in many passages; 
the moral is pointed too plainly; asides and monologues impair 
the subtlety of many scenes. Yet the play has a modern flavor. 
The prose in the dialogue, in spite of its overadornment, strikes 
-a very different note from that of heroic verse. The point of 
departure is a theme, a problem of life, not a story. In tone 
and construction, The London Merchant resembles many social 
dramas produced after the reaction against the well-made play 
of the last century had set in and frequent changes of scene, 
avoided by the French and by English dramatists under the in- 
fluence of Ibsen, were once more allowed. The London Merchant 
does not remind one of plays produced before 1731, but of dramas 
of Lessing, Diderot and Sedaine. 

Moore’s Gamester (1753) was unimportant in the development 
of contemporary English drama, but had an influence on French 
drama. It is a tragedy in prose dealing with the downfall of 


436 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Beverly through gambling and through the villainous machina- 
tions of his false friend, Stukely. 

What Lillo and Moore had done in England, Diderot wished 
to do in France, for he considered The London Merchant a 
“sublime thing.” Moore’s Gamester may well have been in his 
mind when he lauded the dramatic effect of a “passion which 
leads a man to his ruin, from his ruin to despair, from despair 
to a violent death.” He made a free translation of the play in 
1760 which was not played. In 1762 Bruté de Loirelle made 
another translation, and Saurin produced successfully in 1768 
an adaptation of The Gamester entitled Beverlei. The frequent 
adaptations of these two English plays and Diderot’s enthusiasm 
are evidence that they are important forces in the development 
of the drame in France, which has been defined by Professor 
Gaiffe as ‘‘a spectacle intended for a bourgeois or popular audi- 
ence and presenting a moral and affecting picture of its own sur- 
roundings.” ‘The appellation drame had been applied to Mélanide 
in discussions of the play, but Beaumarchais’ Eugénie was the 
first piece officially entitled drame by the author. 

Bourgeois or domestic drama had been produced by Landois 
in his Sylvie (1741), a one-act tragedy in prose, which was a 
failure. The preface, a prologue in dialogue form, anticipated 
Diderot’s theories to some extent in regard to stage setting and 
acting; and Diderot recognized his indebtedness to Landois, 
especially in regard to the use of stage pictures. 

Landois admitted that to write a domestic tragedy in one act 
in prose was to court failure; but he insisted that criticism of 
such a procedure was due to unjustifiable prejudice. He ridi- 
culed the regal heroes of tragedy, the sententious and heroic 
lines, the flowery figures of speech, the dreams and the messenger. 
He held that tragedy departs so much from reality that if one 
saw the French king and his court acting and talking as do tragic 
heroes, one would think them crazy or indulging in a masquer- 
ade. He instructed the actors not to go beyond a natural man- 
ner of acting. His characters were not to advance to the foot- 
lights to spout moral commonplaces and heroic rodomontades. 


ss 


DOMESTIC DRAMA 437 


Without wishing to keep great heroes off the stage, he imagined 
that one could present persons who would be of greater interest, 
because their life was more closely related to that of the audi- 
ence. Such are the theories, briefly stated by Landois, which 
were to be discussed at length some years later by Diderot in his 
Entretiens sur le Fils Naturel. 

Landois’ play deals with a man who is convinced of his wife’s 
infidelity. The curtain rises on a scene in a bare room. 
The husband, Des Francs, has summoned his wife, Sylvie, to 
appear before him. He believes that she is feigning a stupor. 
In the meantime a friend, Des Ronais, appears. Des Francs tells 
him that he has surprised his wife with a certain Galouin, whom 
he wounded, but who escaped. Des Ronais insists upon Sylvie’s 
innocence. He himself was dining the night before with Galouin 
and Sylvie. When he has left, Sylvie appears in a half stupor. 
Her husband accuses her in a scene that has a good deal of sus- 
pense and dramatic power. He takes her stupefied innocence for 
clever feigning. He offers her the choice between death by poison 
or by a hunting knife. She protests her love for him. At last, 
overcome by his emotions, he attempts to commit suicide. Des 
Ronais arrives in time to stop him. He has seen the dying 
Galouin, who confessed that he bribed Sylvie’s maid to drug 
her. Sylvie is innocent. But the French audience was not ready 
for bourgeois tragedy, in one act, in prose. The play failed 
and was forgotten by everyone except Diderot. Yet the dramatic 
theories which it exemplified lived on and Sylvie is one of the 
stones in the foundations of modern drama. 

Diderot was a realist a century before the word was used as 
a critical term. In 1748 he said in the Bijoux Indiscrets: “The 
perfection of a spectacle consists in the imitation of an action, 
so exact, that the spectator, deceived without interruption, imag- 
ines that he is present at the action itself.” Classical tragedy, 
he felt, had passed its highest point of perfection. The plot 
was so complicated that only through a miracle could so many 
events happen in so short a time. It was unnatural because of 
the stilted manners of the actors, the oddness of their costumes, 


438 | THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the extravagance of their gestures, the emphasis of the strange, 
cadenced, rimed dialogue. Also, tragedy was unnatural because 
the author made mouthpieces of his characters, and because the 
actors stood in semi-circles, always faced the audience, and almost 
never sat down. 

Diderot became the advocate of realistic domestic tragedy and 
of the genre serieux—plays which are neither tragic or comic. 
“Do you not realize,’ he says, “the effect produced by a real 
scene, true costumes, dialogue fitting to the action, simple plots, 
dangers which must have made you tremble for your relations, 
your friends, yourself? A reversal of fortune, fear of ignominy, 
the results of poverty, a passion which leads a man to his ruin, 
from his ruin to despair, from despair to a violent death are not 
unusual events; and do you believe that they would not affect 
you as much as the fabulous death of a tyrant or the sacrifice 
of a child on the altars of the gods of Athens or of Rome?” 

Believing in realism and that the function of art was to reveal 
the chain of cause and effect in nature, Diderot wished to retain 
the unities. Mercier, alone, of the theorists of the latter half of 
the eighteenth century, attacked the unities. It is not classical, 
nor realistic, but romantic drama which finds the unities an 
obstacle in presenting dramatic action. The observance of the 
unity of place was not to preclude a reform in stage setting and 
the possibility of changing scenes. Diderot objected to the pres- 
ence of spectators on the stage which allowed only a back drop 
for scenery. It was also “unreal” to him to have conspirators 
against a prince meet in the very room in the palace where the 
prince had just been consulting them on a most important affair. 
The setting, therefore, should change every time that the scene 
changes, and every change should mark a new act. The play 
would be easier to follow, more varied and more interesting. 
Since the scenery was highly developed at the opera, he saw no 
reason why it should not be introduced on the dramatic stage. 
“In order to change the whole conception of drama,” he says, 
“Tt would only ask for a very large stage where one would show, 
when the subject of a play demanded it, a large square with the 


DOMESTIC DRAMA 439 


adjacent edifices, such as the peristyle of a palace, the entrance 
of a temple, different places distributed so that the spectator 
would see the whole action and so that there would be a place 
behind the scenes for the actors.” , 

Just such a setting had been specially constructed for Vol- 
taire’s Sémiramis under the influence of stage decoration for 
opera. This scheme is practically the simultaneous setting of 
the medieval theatre; and in describing the possible action of 
a domestic tragedy, Diderot imagined a setting consisting of two 
rooms separated by a space. He would have on the stage, in 
direct defiance of tragic decorum, a bed, a mother and father 
asleep, a crucifix, the dead body of a son, scenes alternately in 
dialogue and in pantomime. 

In order to bring dramatists closer to the truth in their plots 
and dialogue, and actors closer to natural action and declama- 
tion, he insisted that the setting should be exact. If the scene is 
in the salon of Clairville, as in his Fils Naturel, the salon of 
Clairville must be transported on the stage as it exists in real 
life. (Antoine and Belasco who bought interior furnishings of 
real rooms and placed them on the stage were not such innova- 
tors as has been believed.) The utmost simplicity, however, 
should reign unless the play demands expressly the contrary, so 
that there may be no distraction to the eye. (Only in the last 
four years have modern producers rediscovered this valid theory 
set forth by Diderot.) 

A room on the stage had a fourth wall in Diderot’s imagina- 
tion; but it was placed behind the audience in the parterre. He 
did not make the naive blunder of our modern realists who 
imagine a transparent fourth wall built in the proscenium. He 
wanted a fireplace in the side wall, instead of in the rear centre; 
but he would not have put it in the footlights, nor would he 
have placed chairs with their backs to the audience in the ex- 
treme foreground, as do modern realists. He was enough of a 
realist to know that we do not see the back of furniture which 
stands against a wall. 

Diderot’s theory of the fourth wall was a legitimate concep- 


440 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


tion. It meant that the spectator was im the room, not outside 
of it, and endowed with X-ray eyes. Hence, the movements, 
attitudes, facial expression of the actor assumed an importance 
in his scheme that they never had possessed in tragedy or 
comedy. Actors of his generation moved in a stagy manner, 
with exaggerated gestures. The art of facial expression was in 
its infancy. The actors rarely sat down, but stood in a semi- 
circle and faced the audience. Stage. pictures were only spec- 
tacles. They did not have a psychological value. They did not 
help to tell the story. Their emotional value was negligible. 
Under Diderot’s theory that the invisible spectator is present 
in the room, the actor was to betray the state of his soul by 
acting. ‘He speaks, or is silent, he walks or stops, is seated or 
standing, appears in front of me or on one side. . . . What dif- 
ference does it make that he turns his back on me [the specta- 
tor], that he looks at me, or that, in profile, he is in a chair, his 
legs crossed, and his head in his hands?” His aim was to substi- 


tute real people for the usual mannequins, walking with measured 


steps, acting according to wooden rules, but which got out of the 
picture and sought applause by addressing the parterre. 

Such ideas, together with his work as an art critic, naturally 
led Diderot to discover and insist upon the value of the stage 
picture, which he defined as “an arrangement of persons on the 
stage so natural and so true that, rendered faithfully by a painter, 
would please me on canvas.” Theatrical art was to learn to 
execute “other pictures than those which had been seen for a 
century.” In painting, artists were telling pathetic and senti- 
mental stories on their canvases. So actors were to be grouped, 
not only to be pleasing to the eye, but also to produce the correct 
emotional atmosphere. Indeed, the new domestic tragedies of the 
time seem to have actually reproduced contemporary paintings on 
the stage. The stage pictures became an integral part of the play. 
They helped to tell the story. 

The pictures led to pantomime. Diderot knew many réles and 
he used to close his ears and see if the acting misled him. Few 
players, he found, could undergo successfully this test of their 


a a ee eS ee 


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—— 


DOMESTIC DRAMA 441 


ability. With his customary enthusiasm, he exclaimed of the sleep- 
walking scene in Macbeth: “There are some sublime gestures 
which all the resources of oratory can never express. . . . I know 
of nothing in discourse more pathetic than the silence of that 
woman and the motion of her hands. What a picture of re- 
morse!” After Clairon’s performance in Tancréde (1760), he 
wrote to Voltaire: “Ah, my dear master, if you could see Clairon 
passing across the stage half fainting in the arms of the execu- 
tioners who surround her, her knees bending under her, her eyes 
closed, her arms falling stiff by her side as though she were 
dead; if you heard the cry she utters when she perceives Tan- 
crede, you should be more convinced than ever that silence and 
pantomime sometimes have a pathos to which all the resources 
of oratory can never attain.” | 

Thus a new source of artistic emotion was introduced on the 
French stage. “The great art of silence,” as Voltaire called it, was 
fully appreciated for the first time. For Diderot, effective panto- 
mime was more artistic than poetical dialogue; but Voltaire 
maintained that a monologue written by a Racine is finer than 
any theatrical action that can be devised. Diderot advocated 
that scenes of pantomime alternate with scenes of dialogue. 
Manuscripts of plays began to be filled with state directions. 
The supremacy of the literary element in drama was challenged. 
The playwright no longer had to be a poet or even a man of 
literary ability. 

The difference between the points of view of Voltaire and 
Diderot can be illustrated by an episode in Racine’s Britannicus. 
At the beginning of the second act, Nero describes how Junie 
was abducted and brought to the palace at his command. A 
helpless woman, surrounded by brutal soldiers, she subdued the 
brutal emperor by her timid innocence; and, with her eyes glis- 
tening with tears, in the light of the flickering torches she passed 
unharmed from his presence. The narrative in harmonious 
Alexandrine lines is effective dramatic poetry; but just such 
scenes as this lend themselves to dramatic action. After the 
middle of the eighteenth century, a playwright would be likely 


442 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


to turn Racine’s poetry into prose stage directions. Instead of 
being described at the opening of the second act, the scene would 
be acted at the end of the first act, possibly without one word 
being spoken. Instead of writing descriptive narrative lines, 
the playwright would rely for his effects on the suspense aroused 
_ by the pantomime and by the dramatic series of stage pictures 
inherent in the scene. Only those who prefer to read plays will 
insist that the modern audience is to be criticized because it 
wishes to see such events instead of hearing them described, even 
in poetry written by Racine. 

It is true that when the dénouement of Racine’s [phigénie was 
put into action in 1769, it failed to please the audience. This 
experiment, however, shows plainly the trend of dramatic art at 
that time towards action and away from poetical narration, 
although the wrong scene was evidently selected for representa- 
tion in this experiment. , 

Dialogue, according to Diderot, was to be in prose. It was 
to be a transcript of speech in real life. Under strong emotion, 
the sentences were to be broken into phrases. “The violence of 
a thought cutting off respiration and bringing confusion to the 
mind, a man passes from one idea to another; he begins a multi- 
tude of discourse, he does not finish any.” . . . The long tirades 
of tragedy were frowned upon as stopping the action, and when 
the action is suspended the stage is empty. He states a theory 
which La Chaussée had put into practice almost a generation 
before. Under the influence of his intense emotion Durval in the 
Préjugé a la Mode speaks in broken phrases in the manner de- 
scribed by Diderot. 

Since Diderot believed in the chain of cause and effect in na- 
ture, much of his technical theory was founded upon this idea. ~ 
“Dramatic art,” he said, “prepares for events only to link them; 4 
and it links them in its productions only because they are linked 
in nature.” His point of attack, however, was not chosen in 


relation to this theory. Holding to the unity of time, he was a 


not free to begin the play more than twenty-four hours before 
the close. 


DOMESTIC DRAMA 443 


Stage pictures, pantomime, pathetic and dramatic scenes, such 
as the opening of Sophocles’ Philoctetes which he cites as a 
model, were considered the best means of exposition. He was 
in favor of letting the spectator into the secret of the whole 
situation and even of the dénouement. The interest would lie 
in the psychology of the characters in a given situation. Con- 
cealed relationships bringing about coups de thédtre were to be 
shunned. The spectator would be more interested if the rela- 
tionship were known to him. His tears would flow sooner and 
not only at the moment when the characters themselves dis- 
covered their true identity. ‘Ignorance and perplexity excite the 
curiosity of the spectator and sustain it; but it is the things 
known and always expected which trouble him and agitate him.” 
These ideas are an attack upon the plots of tragedy complicated 
in order to produce coups de thédtre. For complication, he 
would substitute simplicity ; for coups de thédtre, stage pictures. 

With his customary agility in suddenly appearing in the van- 
guard of an advance which bade fair to be successful, Voltaire 
produced his Ecossaise in 1760. The scene represents simulta- 
neously the common room and a private room in an English 
café, although on the stage in Paris only one room was set to 
serve for both. A curtain was dropped momentarily to represent 
the change of scene from one room to another. The location of 
the scene was a novel bit of realism. Few of the audience 
remembered that the scene of one of J. B. Rousseau’s comedies 
had been laid in a café. 

The play deals with a young Scotch girl, Lindane, who has lost 
both family and fortune. She is in love with Lord Murray, the 
son of the man who is responsible for her misfortunes. Through 
the machinations of Lady Alton, also enamored of Murray, she 
believes he has deserted her. The virtuous and modest Lindane 
refuses financial aid offered by the bluff and eccentric merchant, 
Freeport; but he goes bail for her when she is denounced by 
Lady Alton and arrested as a spy. Monrose, about whom hangs 
a mystery calculated to arouse suspense, learns from a newspaper 
that he is condemned to death for political reasons. The good- 


444 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


hearted landlord warns him that already the police are searching 
for him. He discovers Lindane to be his child and prepares to 
slay Murray, scion of the house which has ruined him. Murray 
enters. Swords are drawn, but Murray casts his at the feet of 
Monrose and holds out to him the pardon he has procured. 

Such is the stuff that the drame and the later mélodrame are 
made of. There is the virtuous persecuted heroine, a long-lost 
child, in love with the noble son of a man who has persecuted 
her family ; the scheming villainess, Lady Alton, who is seconded 
by the unscrupulous Frelon; the kindly landlord with his napkin, 
which was then a questionable realistic touch; the gruff but kind 
merchant who offers aid, while drinking chocolate and reading a 
newspaper. This “scene of the chocolate” was especially ap- 
plauded for its realism. There is Monrose saved at the end by 
the necessary papers, when swords have been drawn for a duel. 
Each act ends with a climax—a “big curtain.” In the first act, 
habitués of the inn gather for dinner and keep up a continuous 
chatter on politics and what not, in order to produce realistic 
atmosphere, as it would be called today. 

Diderot’s Pére de Famille achieved success in 1761 and later 
in 1769. It is always on the verge of being dramatic and never 
becomes so. Diderot was too much of a moralist and a conversa- 
tionalist to be a good dramatist. In this play and in his Fils 
Naturel, which he wrote to illustrate his theories of stagecraft, 
he succeeded in following his own precepts, except that his plots 
are more involved than the simple plot he advocated. The stage 
pictures, the pantomime, the emotional dialogue, the transcript 
of real life are all in his plays. Single scenes are effective, such 
as the opening of the Pére de Famille showing the family anx- 
iously awaiting the return of the son and the explanation of his 
absence. The worried father interrogating the servant, the 


daughter playing backgammon with the uncle, their trivial con- 
versation concerning the game, the candles burning out in the ~ 


dawn, this whole picture is very different from the eternal expo- 
sition of valet and soubrette, or hero and valet in comedy. But 
taken as a whole, these plays are not dramatic. The characters 


ee a 


Ee Oe 


DOMESTIC DRAMA 445 


are overwrought ; they talk too much; they weep too much; they 
act too much. The play is engulfed in a flood of emotionalism 
in praise of virtue. The success of the Pére de Famille was due 
to the realistic treatment of scenes of family life which made 
the contemporary audience weep. La Chaussée’s comedies were 
also being given frequent revivals during these years. Senti- 
mentality was overflowing in the theatre. 

The drame needed a dramatist. It found one in Sedaine. His 
Philosophe sans le Savoir (1765) is not only the finest example 
of the eighteenth-century drame, but may well be called the 
first modern drama, so similar is it to plays of the nineteenth and 
early twentieth centuries. 

The curtain rises on a large business office in the home of Van- 
derk, a banker. Antoine, Vanderk’s trusted clerk, finds his 
daughter, Victorine, weeping. When pressed for the cause of her 
tears, she confesses that she has heard talk of a duel to follow 
a quarrel in a café and fears that Vanderk, Jr., may be going to 
fight. It is the day before the wedding of Vanderk’s daughter 
Sophie. Dressed in her bridal robes, Sophie interviews her 
father, pretending she is a client, to see if he recognizes her. 
He pretends not to know his daughter in a scene which is so 
restrained that it serves to bring out the charming atmosphere 
of the happy household without overstepping the bounds of 
sentiment. 

Vanderk, Jr., enters. He is slightly distraught. Sophie pre- 
sents him with a watch. The act closes with the following dia- 
logue: 


VICTORINE (to VANDERK, JR.) 
You have worried me a great deal. A quarrel in a café! 
VANDERK, JR. 
Does my father know that? 
VICTORINE 
Is it true? 
VANDERK, JR. 
No, no, Victorine! (Ewxit into the salon.) 


446 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


VICTORINE 
Oh, how worried I am! 


This restraint in dialogue, the suspense and foreshadowing 
brought out with such simplicity, the combination of happiness 
and tragedy hanging over a peaceful household are new and 
modern elements in dramatic art in 1765. 

In the second act, Vanderk assures his son that the profession 
of a banker is honorable and of great value to the world. Young 
Vanderk is disturbed by the contemporary prejudice which makes 
only the nobility respectable. Vanderk discloses the fact that 
he is of noble birth. Sedaine then introduces Vanderk’s sister, 
a fussy old lady who is obsessed by prejudice against all pro- 
fessions except those of law and the sword. Towards the close 
of the act comes a remarkable scene between Victorine and Van- 
derk, Jr., in which they talk of his watch, but in such a manner 
as to foreshadow the possibility of his death. He gives her the 
watch to keep until the morning. 


VANDERK, JR. 
And will you give it back to me? 
VICTORINE 
Surely. 
VANDERK, JR. 
To me alone? 
VICTORINE 
Why, to whom else? 
VANDERK, JR. 
To me alone. 
VICTORINE 
Why yes, surely. 
VANDERK, JR. 
Goodnight, Victorine . . . Good-bye . . . Goodnight .. . To 
me alone. To me alone. 


It is a procedure of modern realists, especially of Ibsen and 
his followers, to express impending tragedy by indirect methods, 


DOMESTIC DRAMA 447 


to allow the audience to get by implication the dramatic emo- 
tions which are behind such common incidents of real life. The 
tragic atmosphere is heightened by being in contrast with the 
apparent triviality of the incident, while the very triviality of 
the incident makes the tragedy seem more real. The spectator 
enjoys making the necessary deductions from the simple words 
of the dialogue which become fraught with dramatic emotion. 

The third act opens at dawn. Vanderk, Jr., is trying to leave 
the house without arousing anyone. The doors are locked. He 
arouses Antoine to obtain the keys, but his father has them. 
Vanderk, Sr., enters, and a strong obligatory scene ensues in 
which his son explains that he overheard a young officer brand 
business men as knaves and that he challenged the officer in a 
moment of impulsive anger. They are to fight with pistols. 
The father realizes that the duel must take place ‘in spite of the 
fact that it is a barbarous custom and the result of a worn-out 
code of honor. He gives his son the necessary letters to enable 
him to escape to England if he still lives; and he sends him 
forth. 

The sole incident in the fourth act consists in Vanderk, Sr., 
sending Antoine to the scene of the duel with instructions to 
help his son to escape if he lives, and if he is dead—to return 
and knock upon the door three times. The whole act is sur- 
charged with suspense and impending tragedy. Preparations for 
the wedding continue, but the son is absent. Why? Victorine 
is tortured with apprehension. The old aunt fusses about non- 
essentials. Antoine almost loses control of his emotions. 
Madame Vanderk is happy; and yet—why is her son absent? 
The father is outwardly calm, controlled, but shows that his 
heart is breaking. 

In the last act, a M. Desparville presents a letter of credit to 
Vanderk who pays it instantly without discount. Desparville 
is in trouble. His son is fighting a duel! Vanderk guesses 
the truth. As the business transaction is concluded, there is a 
knock at the door, then a second and a third. Vanderk betrays 
his agony only by one phrase: “Ah, sir! All fathers are not 


448 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


unhappy.” The musicians arrive for the wedding. Antoine 
brings the word that both young men fell. Victorine breaks 
down. Vanderk starts to go to his dead son when the boy 
suddenly appears with his adversary, young Desparville. Van- 
derk, Jr., fired in the air when young Desparville had missed him 
narrowly. Both leaped from their horses, and an apology and 
reconciliation ensued. The knowledge of the whole affair is 
withheld from the rest of the household and the curtain descends 
quietly. 

The Philosophe sans le Savoir is an excellent example of the 
results obtained from Diderot’s theories when they are applied 
to drama by a man who is first of all a dramatist. Where Diderot 
failed in practice, Sedaine succeeded. Not since Racine, had any 
French dramatist been able to build a play full of dramatic 
suspense on such a simple situation, although simplicity of plot 
was constantly insisted upon by French playwrights and critics 
in theory. Marivaux alone employed uninvolved plots, but he 
did not aim to create suspense. He relied upon the brilliance 
of his dialogue and minute psychological analysis of character 
to hold his audience. Sedaine, however, creates suspense and 
maintains it to the end. 

The power of the whole play is the result of simplicity aud 
restraint. Sedaine’s technique is the antithesis of the technique 
of contemporary tragedy. His dialogue is apparently only a 
skeleton. There is not a line of what would have been called 
“poetry” then or “literature” today. But each line implies a 
hundredfold more than it says. The virtue of his characters is 
brought out by what they do, not by long tirades, telling how 
virtuous they are. Their deep emotion is betrayed as much by 
what they do not say as by what they do express in words. After 
La Chaussée’s and Diderot’s outbursts, this is a great relief. 

The climax of the play is ushered in by sounds, not by tirades 
of messengers or even of a principal character. Drama has 
proved that it is not necessarily a literary art. } 

Perhaps in one respect alone, the Philosophe sans le Savoir — 
differs from a drama of the latter half of the nineteenth century. — 


DOMESTIC DRAMA 449 


Victorine is the transformed soubrette of comedy, just as Antoine 
is the tricky valet metamorphosed into the faithful confidential 
clerk. Victorine is in love with Vanderk, Jr. Much of the 
tragedy of the situation is brought out through her emotions; 
but she does not marry the son of her employer in the eighteenth 
century. Not until almost a century has passed is she finally 
married to this man of rank by George Sand in her sequel to 
this drama entitled Le Mariage de Victorine (1861). 

Unfortunately for the future history of this new form of 
drama, the conservative actors at the Comédie Francaise did 
little to encourage Sedaine in spite of the success of this play. 
These drames required a new art of acting, and the comedians 
were so rooted in the tradition of their robust heroic declamation 
that they did not feel at home in these rdles which demanded 
simplicity and naturalness. Sedaine began once more to write 
plays for the Opéra-Comique, where he had attained his first 
success. The lesser theatres of Paris, where tradition was 
weaker but where the audience was less educated, became the 
sponsors of the drame. 

The effect on the drame of being closely associated with comic 
operas and with pantomimes given with elaborate scenery and 
orchestral accompaniment was to cause it to become more melo- 
dramatic. Indeed, the term melodrama in the modern sense came 
into use during this period. In 1775 Rousseau applied the de- 
scriptive term mélodrame to his Pygmalion which is a monologue 
accompanied by music. The practice of sustaining certain pas- 
sages of dialogue with music soon grew up in the lesser theatres 
on the Boulevard du Temple managed by Nicolet and by 
Audinot. These two impresarios produced spectacular plays and 
historical pantomimes with musical accompaniment, and the word 
“melodrama” began to assume its modern meaning of a play full 
of hair-raising adventures and unexpected coups de thédtre. 

After such a play as the Philosophe san le Savoir this tendency 
toward the melodramatic is all the more regrettable. Beau- 
marchais’ Eugénie was one of the few plays which carried on 
the ideals of the drame successfully, but Beaumarchais turned 


450 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


.back to classical comedy in his two masterpieces the Barbier de 

Séville and the Mariage de Figaro. Just at the time when the 
valet and soubrette and all the other parts of the formula of 
classical comedy seemed on the wane, Beaumarchais, using the 
old tricks, produced marvelous examples of technical skill. He 
weaves the intricate action of the Mariage de Figaro through sit- 
uation after situation, reaching climax after climax of the gay- 
est farce comedy. And all through the play, Figaro delivers 
rapier thrusts to the Old Régime. The initial cause of the action 
is the fact that Almaviva wishes to exercise a medieval right at 
the marriage of Figaro to Suzanne. From this situation, ex- 
plained in the first act with sparkling wit, arises a long series 
of complications and mistaken identities. The plot is a maze of 
intrigues; but the action is always clear, because the audience 
sees the whole machinery revolving smoothly. Beaumarchais 
produced a masterpiece because he combined wit, clever char- 
acters and skilful plotting in a play which contains a vital 
theme: the conflict between traditional authority and the rights 
of the Third Estate. There is no finer example in all dramatic 
art of a comedy founded upon an important theme, and con- 
taining, at the same time, a complicated plot which does not 
obscure the basic idea. 

While the Comédie Francaise was holding strongly to classical 
tradition and to the rules of good taste, there was an increasing 
desire on the part of the French audiences to experience new 
thrills. Even in tragedy, Voltaire had catered to this taste, 
although circumspectly. The adaptations of The London Mer- 
chant and The Gamester were also very much softened. Mercier 
did not allow his Jenneval (Barnwell) to murder his uncle and 
thus turned the grim English play into a rather sentimental story 
of regeneration. The courtezan, Millwood, was also much re- 
formed by Mercier. Saurin, in his Beverlei (The Gamester), 
transferred much of the interest of the spectator from Stukely, 
the villain, to his hero. The arch villain was still too strong for 
French taste, as were such characters as Millwood. Both Sedaine 
and Collé were inspired to draw plays from Dodsley’s Miller of 


DOMESTIC DRAMA Ast 


Mansfield, which had been translated by Patu; but Sedaine in 
Le Roi et le Fermier and Collé in the Partie de Chasse de Henri 
IV kept the heroine pure, although in the original version she 
had been seduced by Lord Lurewell. A false marriage was 
almost the only fault allowed the virtuous heroines of the French 
drame. The themes involving adultery were left for the writers 
of the nineteenth century. 

Secondary characters and changes of scene, especially within 
an act, were materially reduced in number by French play- 
wrights in their adaptations of English plays. Scenes of comedy, 
risqué dialogue and lyric passages were carefully deleted. Yet 
in comparison with plays constructed in accordance with strict 
classical rules, the drame was much freer. Although the scene 
did not change with such frequency as on the English stage, 
under the influence of the Opéra-Comique and the Opéra and 
the pantomimes, the scenic element became important and 
changes of scene took place from act to act, provided the locali- 
ties represented were not far distant from each other. Instead 
of the public square or the drawing-room of comedy, and the 
vestibule of a palace of tragedy, the drame showed the specta- 
tors forest scenes, interiors of peasant huts, the interior of a 
prison, etc. 

Mercier and Marmontel both insisted upon the emotional effect 
of scenery. The trivial, sordid details so dear to the realists of 
the nineteenth century were emphasized in the settings for the 
drame. ‘The scene, the stage picture and the pantomime of the 
first scene of Mercier’s Indigent are described with great care. 
The stage represents a miserable room without a fireplace. The 
furniture is dilapidated. The broken windows are patched with 
paper. A lamp is burning low. Through a door is seen a young 
woman lying on a small bed. A man is weaving. He gets up 
to see if this woman, his sister, is sleeping. The noise of a lively 
party and music of an orchestra are heard. The man blows 
upon his cold fingers. One might believe that this is a modern 
play dealing with the lower depths of society in the style of the 
modern realists. Other scenes represent the apartments of a rich 


452 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


young man, a stair and a hallway in the same building. A scene 
in a notary’s office, carefully set in all its confusion, is no un- 
worthy predecessor of similar interiors described by Balzac with 
a wealth of commonplace details. 

Such scenes are very different from the drawing-room of La 
Chaussée or even of Diderot. Some of the people who come and 
go in these surroundings are poverty-stricken; but the cynicism 
of the Regency had long ago given way to sentimentality; and 
these characters are too sentimentally virtuous to be realistic. 
They resemble closely the people of tearful comedy. They are 
in the usual ignorance of their real relationships. The problem 
is only superficial. The heroine in this case turns out to be the 
sister of her would-be seducer. 

Thus the drame introduced realism in details of scenery, cos- 
tume, dialogue and acting; but the plots and characters remained 
romantic in these realistic surroundings. Yet the drame was too 
realistic for the conservative actors of the Comédie Francaise. 
They did not wish to modify their routine methods. Such play- 
wrights as Sedaine and Mercier were forced into the lesser 
theatre in Paris and into the provincial playhouses. The drame 
tended to become melodramatic, because it had to make its 
appeal to less intellectual audiences that wanted thrills and even 
shudders, provided they came wrapped in a romantic haze of 
triumphant virtue. 

Sharing the stage with spectacular pantomimes and with melo- 
dramas, the scenery became more romantic, more thrilling and 
even grisly. Scenes of every description were represented with 
careful attention to details. Even lighting effects began to be 
developed, not merely to differentiate night from day in a realistic 
manner, but in order to give an added beauty. Favart in the 
Moissonneurs directed that “in the first act, the sky grows bright 
gradually, the morning mist disappears, the sun rises, etc.” This 
is an early example of the light-scenario which plays such an 
important part in the modern theatre. 

The drame, as conceived by Diderot and as written by 
Sedaine and Beaumarchais, was too realistic for the actors of 


ae 


DOMESTIC DRAMA 453 


the Comédie Francaise; but it was not romantic enough for 
the theatres on the Boulevards. Thus it was more or less ab- 
sorbed by the melodrama; and the new combination, instead of 
leading directly to such realistic plays as those of the younger 
Dumas and of Augier, paved the way for the romantic dramas 
of the elder Dumas and of Hugo. 


CHAPTER XV 
GERMAN DRAMA OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


HE Thirty Years’ War left Germany in a deplorable condi- 

tion. There was no intellectual centre, no flourishing capi- 
tal where art and wealth could combine to produce drama. The- 
atrical activities were in the hands of nomadic troupes of actors. 
Repertory companies of English, French, Dutch and Italians 
toured the country, sometimes settling down more or less perma- 
nently at the court of some principality which had been created 
by the Peace of Westphalia. German troupes were also formed 
in imitation of these foreign companies and took over their plays 
in translation. 

The repertory of these wandering comedians included many 
forms of drama: Italian commedia dell’ arte and opera; pseudo- 
Shakespearean dramas, such as the Bestrafte Brudermord ; bibli- 
cal mysteries ; farces ; adaptations of Spanish and Italian dramas ; 
French tragedy and comedy; and Dutch plays. Because of the 
custom of having the actors improvise much of the dialogue, the 
original authors would have recognized their offspring with diffi- 
culty. 

The principal rdle on the German stage was that of the clown 
known as Hanswurst, Pickelherring or Harlequin. He appeared 
in farces and comedies as the important character and was even 
introduced into the serious plays as a humorous commentator 
on the plot and characters. In such a theatre it is not surprising 
to find coarse humor in place of comedy, blood-curdling horror 
in place of tragedy, bombast in place of dramatic dialogue. To 
bring forth a national drama, Germany had to build up a national 
spirit and an intellectual centre. Dramatic art had to have 
leaders who, by precept and example, would bring some order 
out of the theatrical chaos. 

454 


GERMAN DRAMA 455 


The nationalization of Germany became possible after the 
Peace of Westphalia. Leipzig became the artistic and intellec- 
tual centre in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. In 
1724, Gottsched, a young Prussian, came there in order to escape 
the recruiting officers of the famous stalwart guards and to try to 
realize his ambitions to become chief-of-staff of the German 
intellectuals. He possessed the tenacity and the ability for 
organization of a Prussian drill sergeant. He made up his mind 
that German drama—indeed all literature—should be reformed 
according to the rules of French classicism, particularly as laid 
down by Boileau in his Art Poétique. 

This decision and his efforts to carry out his plan were to 
bring down upon his head the wrath and contempt of many of 
his own generation. He was reviled as a worshipper of false 
gods. He lacked creative ability. His artistic sense was under- 
developed. Yet the German theatre needed drastic reform. 
Purification was necessary in every sense of the word. There 
were three forms of dramatic art which he might have chosen as 
a model for German drama: the Greek, the English, or the 
French. In selecting French drama he believed that he was 
including whatever the Greeks had to teach the moderns. The 
neo-classical form, more than English drama, offered the cor- 
rectives of simplicity, of unity and of good taste which had to 
be applied to German dramatic art. The ideals of classicism 
may be narrow; but they are very valuable in drama, as in all 
art, in checking artistic Bolshevism. Had Gottsched set up the 
Shakespearean drama as the ideal, he would have misunderstood 
the content and have stamped his approval on a form which 
would not have offered correctives necessary for German drama 
at that time. In order to attain true liberty, without anarchy, 
it was well for the German stage to be ruled for a time by the 
absolutism of French classicism. 

Gottsched suggested to Hoffmann, the manager of a troupe 
of actors, that he present translations of French tragedies; but 
Hoffmann felt that the German public would not support serious 
plays without the role of the clown. When Neuber and his 


456 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


talented wife took over the management of this company, they 
sought the advice of Gottsched on their arrival in Leipzig in 
1727. He saw in them actors of high ideals. They had already 
tried the experiment of playing regular tragedies and comedies. 
They saw in him the avowed reformer of the German stage, who 
could guide them in their career. Thus a co-partnership between 
the practical and theoretical sides of dramatic art was formed. 

A new repertory had to be created, and there were practically 
no German playwrights. Gottsched decided to have French 
drama translated and produced until the Germans could learn to 
write their own plays. Not a spark of originality was shown by 
Gottsched in his confession of faith—Versuch einer Kritischen 
Dichtkunst (1730)—in which he merely reiterated the ideas of 
Horace and Boileau. The adaptations and translations of French 
plays made by him or under his direction are mere hack-work. 
He built his Sterbende Cato (1731) out of fragments of Des- 
champs’ Caton d’Utique and Addison’s Cato. Yet in spite of its 
defects it achieved success and held the stage for many years. 
The repertory was published as the Deutsche Schaubiihne (1740) 
in six volumes. The first three volumes contain translations of 
well-known French tragedies and comedies. The last three are 
devoted to plays by German authors such as Grimm, J. E. 
Schlegel and Frau Gottsched. 

In selecting the French drama as the model, Gottsched did not 
intend to remain satisfied with the production of French plays. 
He was extremely patriotic and wanted to show the rest of the 
world that Germans, once having been given correct models, 
could produce plays as fine as those of any nationality. In his 
Kritische Dichtkunst (1730) he said that Germans would have 
to be contented with translations of French plays until they 
could develop their own dramatists. In the preface of the first 
volume of the Deutsche Schaubihne he insisted that Germany 
did not lack men capable of defending the national honor against 
the claims of the French. He was by no means a totally blind 
admirer of French drama. He encouraged the study and trans- 
lation of Holberg’s plays in which the bourgeois German could 


ee See 


GERMAN DRAMA 457 


find more of his domestic environment represented than in 
French drama. 

He fought, together with the Neubers, the difficult battle of 
driving the clown off the stage. Karoline Neuber wrote a one-act 
play which dramatized the banishment of Hanswurst from the 
stage. The clown frequently returned, for the German public 
delighted in his coarse jokes; but Gottsched’s reform was finally 
effective, though after he had been discredited as a leader. In 
charging him with lacking originality, it must be remembered 
that when he attempted to reform the costume of actors, his 
idea of having actors dress in costumes of the period of the 
play was so novel that it met stony opposition. When the 
Neubers had broken off relations with their erstwhile guide, they 
lampooned his idea of exact costume by playing the third act of 
his Sterbende Cato with burlesque Roman costumes. The audi- 
ence roared with joy. Real genius would have been wasted on a 
public that was not willing to accept simple reforms based on 
obvious common sense. 

Deserted by the Neubers and attacked by Breitinger and 
Bodmer for attempting to impose rules of French classicism on 
German literature, Gottsched began to lose his power. Younger 
men, such as J. E. Schlegel, began to found their theories of 
dramatic art on Greek ideals and to admire Shakespeare’s Julius 
Cesar which was translated in 1741. Holberg’s plays outstripped 
Moliére’s comedies in popularity. Under the influence of this 
Danish playwright, Borkenstein wrote Der Bookesbeutel (1742) 
which gave evidence that other plays beside the French were 
worthy of study and imitation. Thus the Gottschedian domina- 
tion was severely shaken before Lessing arrived in Leipzig in 
1746. 

Lessing was closely affiliated for two years with the Neubers, 
who produced his comedy Der Junge Gelehrte. He became an 
intense student of dramatic art on the stage, and learned from 
observation and practice the possibilities and limitations of living 
drama. With Weisse he translated, among other plays, Reg- 
nard’s Joueur, Voltaire’s Mariamne, Marivaux’s Annibal and, 


458 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


for some unknown reason, Thompson’s dreary Sophonisba. He 
also planned and wrote fragments of many dramas as experi- 
ments in the art of playwriting. 

His complete plays and scenarios of this period of apprentice- 
ship show him to be strongly under French influence, especially 
that of Moliére whom he always admired even when he attacked 
French classicism. He observed the unities and employed the 
conventional characters of French comedy, even giving them 
French names. Though it does not seem that he had read 
Shakespeare as yet, he was acquainted with Restoration drama. 
His scenario Der Leichtgldéubige is founded on Wycherly’s Coun- 
try Wife; and Congreve’s Double Dealer forms the basis of his 
sketch Der Gute Mann. However, he simplified the plots, as a 
French playwright would have done, by deleting characters and 
events which are not closely related to the main action. His 
conception of the unity of action was at least as severe as that 
of Voltaire, whom he admired and met in Berlin in 1751. If they 
talked on drama together they must have been in full agreement, 
although some years afterward Lessing attacked Voltaire’s 
theories vigorously. , 

By 1750 he had reached the conclusion that Shakespeare, Dry- 
den, Wycherly, Vanbrugh, Cibber and Congreve, who were known 
only by name in Germany, deserved admiration as well as the 
French poets; and he believed that if the German followed his 
own nature in dramatic art, the German stage would resemble 
the English more than the French. He did not include in this 
list George Lillo who was soon to exert a strong influence on 
Lessing, himself, through his London Merchant. Moore’s Game- 
ster, which was to be popular in Germany, had not yet been 
written. 

In 1754 Lessing began to publish the Theatralische Bibliothek, 
and in the first number he included discussions of sentimental 
comedy by Chassiron and by Gellert. In commenting on this 


form of drama, Lessing took the ground that true comedy may 4q 


contain both humorous and emotional scenes. He accepted the 
plays of Destouches, which were both comic and sentimental, 


— ee 


GERMAN DRAMA 450 


but he rejected the purely tearful comedy of La Chaussée. Vol- 
taire had expressed similar views in his preface to Nanine 
(1749). Later when Lessing had become acquainted with the 
theories of Diderot and had seen La Chaussée’s Mélanide, 
Gresset’s Sidnei and Mme. de Graffigny’s Cénie, he changed his 
views and accepted purely sentimental comedy as a form of 
drama which gave legitimate pleasure. 

Lessing was not in advance of his times in his theory. In 
practice, however, he was soon to outstrip the French dramatists, 
for in 1752 he was engaged in writing his Miss Sara Sampson 
(1755) under the influence of the English novel and drama. 
This play is a domestic tragedy, a kind of drama then known to 
the French only in the translation of Lillo’s London Merchant, 
which was also translated into German, and played at Leipzig 
in 1754. Moore’s Gamester was translated by Bode in the same 
year. Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe and Grandison were the 
sources for the idea, though not the actual plot of Lessing’s play ; 
but, unlike Lillo in The London Merchant, he did not dramatize 
a narrative story. He constructed his plot and selected his 
scenes with entire freedom. True to his theory of the similarity 
of taste in drama between the English and Germans, he not only 
treated a story laid in England involving English characters, 
but also employed a form of drama somewhat freer than the 
French. 

The first scene represents a public room in an English inn. Sir 
Sampson and his faithful servant, Waitwell, have found that 
Sara Sampson, who has eloped, is there with her lover, Mellefont. 
Her old father is ready to forgive her. The scene changes to 
Mellefont’s room. Mellefont upbraids himself for seducing Sara 
and carrying her away. His servant, Norton, mentions a certain 
Marwood, among other wicked women, on whom Mellefont has 
wasted his patrimony. Sara enters and pleads with Mellefont 
not to delay their marriage. For nine weeks he has been putting 
it off. In relating an allegorical dream, she foreshadows the 
course of the action. Mellefont seems to love her deeply, but 
he must delay their nuptials longer because of an inheritance 


460 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


which he would lose if he married her then. A letter arrives 
from Marwood. She is in the same town and demands an 
interview. 

The second act takes place in Marwood’s room at another inn. 
She is disclosed at her toilet, with her maid, Hannah. Mellefont 
is received warmly by her, but he repulses her. She seeks to 
win him back, trying all her weapons in vain. At last she brings 
in their daughter, Arabella. They kneel before him. He is 
shaken to whatever depths his being contains. He leaves, and 
Marwood believes she has won her game; but Mellefont returns, 
having “recovered his senses.” He refuses to leave Sara. Mar- 
wood, Medea-like, threatens to slay their child.. She draws a 
dagger and tries to stab Mellefont, who wrests the dagger from 
her. Marwood demands that she be allowed to visit Sara as a 
“Lady Solmes.” Mellefont consents for no valid psychological 
reason. The dramatist has intervened to arrange a meeting 
which is an obligatory scene but is weakly motivated. 

The third act opens in a room in the first inn. Sir William 
gives Waitwell a letter for Sara, which will assure her of his 
forgiveness. He chooses this method ostensibly to save Sara 
from embarrassment, but really so that the dramatist can stage 
a scene, which proves ineffective dramatically. Sara, seeing the 
letter, first jumps to the conclusion that her father is dead, and 
then says she cannot read a letter of forgiveness. A meeting 
of the father and daughter would have been much more dramatic 
than the interview between Sara and the old servant, which is 
full of sentimental shilly-shallying and curious psychology. The 
meeting of “Lady Solmes” and Sara, however, is well handled. 
The situation is charged with suspense. Marwood conducts 
herself as a lady. When she finds out that the fact that she 
has put Sir William on the track of his daughter has resulted 
in a reconciliation she withdraws, alleging faintness. 

In the opening scene of the fourth act, Sara is radiant with 
happiness; but when she has left the stage, Mellefont doubts 
that he really wishes to marry her. He does not understand 
himself. Marwood arrives once more. She demands to see Sara. 


GERMAN DRAMA 461 


Mellefont once more consents weakly. Marwood gets rid of 
Mellefont by a trick. The two women face each other in a scene 
that was to appear in many a modern drama. “Lady Solmes” 
pleads for Marwood; she discloses her past; she describes how 
Mellefont won her love; she tells of the child and begs Sara 
to be generous. Sara is deeply stirred, but revolts at the idea 
of giving up her lover. At last she throws herself on her knees 
before “Lady Solmes” begging her not to place her in the same 
class with Marwood. “Lady Solmes” discloses her identity. 
Sara, in terror, recognizes the woman with the dagger of whom 
she dreamed. She rushes wildly from the room. Marwood’s 
monologue vaguely foreshadows her atrocious design to poison 
Sara. : 

In the fifth act Sara has recovered from her terror; but 
strange pains are seizing her. Méellefont returns. A letter is 
brought to him. It is from Marwood who is escaping to the 
coast. She has poisoned the medicine which Betty gave Sara. 
Sir William enters and Sara dies in his arms. Mellefont commits 
suicide with Marwood’s dagger. 

That the play scored a success on the German stage until it 
was overshadowed by Emilia Galotti (1771) is no cause for sur- 
prise. Miss Sara Sampson, although not flawless, is unquestion- 
ably the most powerful domestic drama of the century. Sedaine’s 
Philosophe sans le Savoir—not yet written—was to be more 
artistic in its technique; but its climax depends on a mistake. 
Lessing’s situation exists. It has none of the mistaken identities 
and the long arms of chance found in La Chaussée’s manufac- 
tured plots. Marwood’s disguise is perfectly legitimate, since it 
is not employed for purposes of dénouement. Lessing faced his 
tragic situation boldly and carried it through to an ending that 
is logical in its pathos. . If the motivation of some of Mellefont’s 
acts is weak, we must remember that he himself is an unstable 
weakling, given to lawless acts. It is far better to have the 
action unfold with such motivation, than to have the plot depend 
upon the mistakes and chance meetings which many plays had 
inherited from Roman comedy. There is too much didacticism, 


462 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


too much weeping, too much sentimentality for the modern stage; 
but in comparison with Diderot’s tearful dummies or Lillo’s 
preaching personages, Lessing’s characters are very human in an 
age when the stage was dominated by didactic ideals and senti- 
mentality. Even Lessing, artist though he was, decided for or 
against certain forms of drama partially on their power to teach 
morals and reform mankind. The opposition of the clergy in 
all countries to the theatre was responsible in a large measure 
for such false standards of dramatic criticism. | 

Many influences were operative in the construction of Miss 
Sara Sampson. Lillo had produced domestic tragedy and Lessing 
was inspired to emulate him in the unhappy outcome instead of 
producing merely a sentimental comedy. The mother of Lessing’s 
Marwood was Lillo’s Millwood. Sara, Mellefont and Sir William 
recall Richardson’s characters of the same types. The virtuous 
heroine abducted or eloping with a Lovelace, her death, the 
sentimental tone can be ascribed to the vogue of Clarissa Har- 
lowe; but the dominating factor in the actual situation is 
Seneca’s Medea. Lessing studied Seneca carefully. As in 
Medea, a man is deserting a woman who is the mother of his 
child. She threatens to murder the child; and her language is 
manifestly Senecan in its disgusting details describing how she 
will cut up the child. She slays the bride with poison and 
escapes in triumph. Rightly, Marwood calls herself a “new 
Medea.” If she is somewhat baffling in her brutality and in 
the sympathy she arouses at times, it is because we cannot under- 
stand a Medea in modern surroundings even though she be de- 
based from a queen to a courtezan. Even Medea, as conceived 
by Euripides, was a strange barbarian to the Greeks. 

No Frenchman would have written a play in 1755 dealing with 
the situation of Miss Sara Sampson, given it a tragic ending, 
and placed on the stage a heroine who had willingly given her- 
self to her lover. The French would have demanded that Sara 
should have been tricked by a false marriage. They would not 
have accepted Marwood at all. They would not have allowed a 
change of scene within an act, and would have been loathe to 


— e. 


a ee ee ee  -  — 


GERMAN DRAMA 463 


permit the change from act to act. Yet the construction of 
the play is French rather than English because of its compact- 
ness. Lessing believed that the unities of time and place were 
not sacred rules, that they could be sacrificed, if necessary, as in 
Plautus’ Captives. He changed the scene several times in Miss 
Sara Sampson, but not so often as did English dramatists in their 
plays. He observed the unity of time. He introduced no scenes 
merely for the sake of representing incidents of the story. He 
did not show Mellefont being led through the town by Mar- 
wood’s accomplices, nor Marwood poisoning Sara, nor Marwood’s 
escape. An English playwright would not only have represented 
such events but also might have placed the point of attack so as 
to include the decision of Sara to elope, in order to show more 
of the story in action. Lessing’s point of attack is strictly classi- 
cal. It is correctly placed just at the moment before the dramatic 
action begins. The initial cause is Marwood’s plan to face 
Mellefont once more. As a result, the play shows more of the 
psychological reaction of events, the theme is more emphasized, 
characters are more carefully analyzed, than in English domestic 
drama. The play is compact and well made in comparison with 
The Gamester or The London Merchant. It is true that the 
English prototypes contain only one action as does the German 
play; but they are exceptions to the rule. English drama gen- 
erally combined two actions or at least had more episodes than 
Continental drama. 

The scenes of the German play are sustained discussions of 
the theme. They rise to climaxes gradually. The second scene 
between Sara and Marwood is especially fine in its change from 
tense calmness to the tragic outburst from Sara when she recog- 
nizes Marwood. It unveils the past with profound emotional 
effect. Lessing learned this dramatic method of telling a story 
from classical drama; but he also pointed the way to many 
scenes of this kind in modern dramas of Hebbel and Ibsen. 
Classical, but not so felicitous, is his use of the allegorical, fore- 
shadowing dream. The device was threadbare even in his time. 
Diderot was soon to say: “The devil take this race of dreamers.” 


464 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The scrvants which Lessing gave to each principal character 
stepped out of French comedy and assumed the réles of con- 
fidants. Betty is the only one which is at all vital to the plot. 
Waitwell and Norton are mere sentimental moralizers. Had 
Lessing followed English drama entirely in constructing Miss 
Sara Sampson, he would probably have avoided none of the flaws 
in his play; and it might have lost much of its effectiveness as 
close-knit drama. 

Lessing had given Germany a well-written domestic tragedy, 
a play dealing with family life without melodramatic scenes in a 
prison. By 1758 he was engaged in writing Emilia Galotti which 
was planned to be in three acts instead of the classical five. 
He intended to take advantage of all the liberty of the English 
stage. The next year found him attacking Gottsched once more 
for having introduced French tragedy as the model for German 
dramatists. His attacks on French drama were almost always 
confined to classical tragedy. He admired Moliére and 
Destouches. He considered Diderot on a plane with Aristotle; — 
and he acknowledged, even to the point of exaggeration, the 
debt he owed to this mediocre playwright but excellent critic, 
whose plays he translated into German. However, he proclaimed 
in 1759 the superiority of English tragedy over the French. 
“In our tragedies we wish to see and think more than the timid 
French tragedy gives us occasion to see or think. . . . The great, 
the terrible, the melancholy ... affect us more deeply than 
the good, the tender, the loving. . . . Too great simplicity tires 
us more than too great complexity.” He believed that Shake- 
speare was greater than Corneille; that Corneille was closer to 
the ancients in technique, but Shakespeare was nearer them in 
what is essentially tragic. Shakespeare was to become the model 
of the Germans. Lessing proclaimed his power; but he did not 
imitate the Shakespearean form in his own plays, even with the — 
“modest alterations” which he admitted were necessary. 

His Minna von Barnhelm is the most truly German comedy 
in spirit produced up to 1767. He reproduced in it the life and — 
customs of his country. He created German characters and put 


GERMAN DRAMA A465 


them in a situation arising from the Seven Years’ War, instead 
of taking them from the English or French stage. Franciska is 
no Lisette. The valet, Just, is not a Frontin. Werner, the land- 
lord, is drawn from life. Minna and Tellheim are distinct per- 
sonalities possessing more than the one trait of character shown 
by most people in classical comedy. 

Yet the construction of the play is French. It observes the 
unities carefully. Unlike the action in contemporary English 
comedy, the plot of Minna von Barnhelm is uninvolved. Al- 
though Lessing had criticized the simplicity of French tragedy, 
he did not like the complex plots of English comedy “which dis- 
tract and tire our attention.” There is no trace of any English 
influence except that the episode of the rings recalls The Mer- 
chant of Venice. If Lessing prolonged the situations arising 
from the exchange of rings, he was simply juggling too deftly 
after the manner of French dramatists. Goethe justly admired 
the masterful process of the exposition of plot. Without de- 
tracting from Lessing’s originality or skill, it may be said that 
Moliere in his Tartufe had shown him the way. Also, Goethe 
pointed out the greatest defect in this otherwise well-built play. 
The secondary characters are too much in evidence in the third 
act. After Minna and Tellheim have met, the spectator wants 
to see them fight their charming battle of love and honor. 

Lessing’s dramaturgic skill is no less striking in his Emilia 
Galotti which is based on the story of the Roman maiden Vir- 
ginia, slain by her father in order to preserve her honor. He 
modernized the setting by placing the characters in an Italian 
court of the eighteenth century; and many of the spectators 
‘must have thought in terms of contemporary German courts 
when they saw the play. The plot, unlike that of heroic tragedy, 
does not involve any political question; but since the characters 
are of high rank, it can scarcely be called a domestic tragedy. A 
romantic atmosphere pervades certain scenes, such as that in 
which Angelo, the bandit, plans the abduction of Emilia. The — 
attack on her carriage and the murder of her lover, Appiani, 


466 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


although off the stage, are also devices belonging to the romantic 
playwrights. 

Lessing observed the unity of time; but the scene changes 
from the Prince’s palace to Galotti’s house. No vitally im- 
portant scene is kept off the stage; but an English dramatist 
would have shown the meeting of the Prince and Emilia in the 
church and also would probably have shown their first introduc- 
tion to each other. Once more Lessing’s training in the French 
school of dramatic art seems to have kept him from employing 
all the liberty and freedom of English drama. However, the 
features of French drama objectionable to Lessing are conspicu- — 
ously absent. There are no confidants, declamatory tirades, nor 
messengers. The foreshadowing dream is reduced to a few lines. 
Odoardo stabs his daughter and her death occurs on the stage. 
The plot unfolds through events and not through the explanation 
of the reaction of the characters to the events, as it does in 
French tragedy. 

The incidents which Lessing devised to advance the action and 
to develop the characters were effective and novel in the eight- 
eenth century. The Prince shows his impulsive love for Emilia 
Galotti by granting a request to a woman because she, too, is ~ 
named Emilia. Later, he is ready to sign a death warrant with- 
out looking at it, so absorbed is he in his new passion. Much 
of the exposition is given by having a painter bring to the Prince 
a portrait of Orsina, his mistress, and one of Emilia. To develop 
character and action by introducing incidents not closely con- 
nected with the plot is a method of modern playwrights but 
was a striking novelty in the eighteenth century. To make each 
act a unit ending with a distinct climax, as Lessing does, was 
also an important factor in the dramatic technique of the eight- 
eenth century. The Frenchman, Sedaine, was the only dramatist 
up to this time who seems to have realized the value of this 
procedure. The English still made the scene the unit. For the — 
French, the whole play was the unit; but Lessing and Sedaine 
. understood the value of a climax just before an entr’acte curtain. 
There are many touches of theatrical skill throughout the play. — 


GERMAN DRAMA 467 


Indeed, Lessing borders upon the melodramatic in the develop- 
ment of his action. Odoardo stabs his daughter in order to 
bring about a tragic ending. Emilia is in the Prince’s palace. 
The Prince is a sensualist, but he does not offer her violence. Her 
father is fully informed of everything. The Prince insists that 
he must send his daughter to the house of the chancellor pending 
an investigation of the death of her fiancé. In order to justify 
the slaying of Emilia, Lessing has her beg for death because 
of the astounding confession that she makes: Grimaldi’s house 
is one of revelry; she has felt its influence; she has a passionate 
nature and might not control herself! With no preparation, 
Lessing destroys the Emilia of the first four acts. If anyone 
should be killed by the outraged father, it is the Prince, not 
the innocent daughter; but he escapes with Marinelli, the real 
villain. It is neither Shakespearean nor Aristotelian. It is melo- 
dramatic. That the Lessing who insisted so strongly in the 
Hamburgische Dramaturgie on Aristotle’s theory of logical proba- 
bility, should so falsify character and situation for the sake of 
theatrical effect is very significant. Romantic tragedy and melo- 
drama are in the air. 

In Germany, as in France, Shakespeare was becoming a name 
to conjure with in the latter half of the eighteenth century when 
the attack on classical tragedy began. The age delighted in 
paradoxes and Shakespeare exemplified a dramatist who aroused 
tragic emotions without observing the “rules” of tragedy. He 
was the “voice of nature,” yet he had not imitated the ancients 
in order to follow nature. Pope had come to the conclusion 
that the Aristotelian rules could not be the measuring rod for 
Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare did not speak of nature but 
through her. Dryden said that Shakespeare “needed not the 
spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards and found 
her there.” The German playwrights were soon going to be 
content to seek for nature in Shakespeare instead of looking 
either inwards or outwards. 

Young, in his Conjectures on Original Criticism (1759), be- 
came the champion of Shakespeare. He was not the son of the 


468 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


ancients but their brother; “their equal and that in spite of all 
his faults.” He was master of two books: the book of nature 
and of man. He was original, not an imitator. Young’s treatise 
was translated into German twice, immediately after its :publica- 
tion. Kame’s Elements of Criticism also were translated (1763- 


66) and the German scholars found in them the following ideas: 


Shakespeare is superior to all other writers in delineating passion 
and sentiments; his dialogue is the language of nature; his plays 


are defective in the mechanical part and are full of irregularities; — 


but he excels all the ancients and moderns in knowledge of 
human nature; in drawing character, he is masterful. 

These English estimates of Shakespeare were eagerly read and 
echoed in Germany. Wieland published a translation of his 
plays which, though inexact and defective in many places, offered 
an opportunity to become acquainted with the work of this 
natural genius, this voice of nature which sang untrammelled by 
rules. Lessing placed him on a plane with Sophocles, far above 
Corneille and Voltaire. Corneille’s plays resembled the Greek 
drama in mechanics, Shakespeare’s resembled them in spirit. 
Gerstenberg praised them as “pictures of moral nature.” In 
spite of his defects, Shakespeare was a great artist. Such was 
the general verdict. 

But that was not all. Gerstenberg and others pointed out that 
Shakespeare was great because he had imitated nature and had 
not followed the ancients. Lessing was willing to couple Shake- 
speare with Sophocles, but he was too profound an admirer of 
Aristotle and the Greek dramatists to admit that all rules, espe- 
cially the actual rules of Aristotle, could be disregarded. For 
him Aristotle was as irrefutable as Euclid. Gerstenberg insisted 
that Aristotle wrote for his own time; that the moderns have 
more liberty; that Shakespeare is not to be judged by rules 
made two thousand years ago under different theatrical condi- 


tions. Warning against such revolutionary ideas, Lessing said — 


that “tragedy cannot depart one step from the guidance of Aris- 


totle without departing just so far from perfection.” Lessing — 


reached this point of view by having swept aside the pseudo- ~ 


GERMAN DRAMA 469 


Aristotelian rules and the involved lubrications of scholars. He 
studied Aristotle’s Poetics as a manual of playwriting. He tested 
dramatic art on the stage in the light of Aristotle’s ideas. He 
understood Greek dramatic craftsmanship better than anyone up 
to his time and far better than most modern Aristotelian scholars, 
because he was a man of the theatre and they are theorizers at 
a desk. Anyone who studies the Poetics from Lessing’s point of 
view and who discards pseudo-Aristotelianism of all ages, will 
be likely to reach his conclusion as to the value of the Poetics 
for the dramatist. 

Lessing’s statement of the case of German drama may be sum- 
marized as follows: The French stage is supposed to be entirely 
fashioned according to the rules of Aristotle, and critics have 
tried to convince Germans that it has reached its high degree 
of perfection through the observance of these rules. Thus the 
Germans have imitated the French. Germans have been happily 
awakened from their slumber by certain English plays; they 
have finally discovered that tragedy is capable of quite a differ- 
ent effect than Corneille and Racine were able to make it produce. 
Blinded by this sudden gleam of truth, Germans have bounded 
back to the edge of another abyss. The English lack plainly 
certain known rules contained in French drama. Germans have 
concluded that the aim of tragedy is reached without these rules, 
indeed that it is less well attained by following the rules. Even 
that opinion might be accepted, but to confound all rules of 
dramatic art with these rules of French tragedy and to renounce 
them all, to consider prescribing what shall and what shall not 
be done as mere pedantry, to forget what has been learned and 
to insist that every playwright discover dramatic art for himself 
—that Lessing will not countenance. 

Yet, in a measure, that is just what was done. The idea that 
Shakespeare was a great playwright in spite of not observing 
rules was transformed to the theory that he attained the aim 
of tragedy by not observing rules. Shakespeare was “original.” 
He was “the voice of nature.” No longer “the brother of the 
ancients,” he became their opponent. Even the mechanics of 


470 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


his plays, which Gerstenberg had admitted were weak, now 
began to be praised. Herder insisted that Shakespeare, far 
from incapable of inventing a plot, conceived stories of which 
the view alone gave one vertigo. His plays were like successive 
waves of the sea, vast pictures of life. A new form of drama 
must be created such as Shakespeare had invented. Lenz had 
taken up the battle against classicism and Aristotle. He formu- 
lated the new rule that dramatic unity consisted not in the unity 
of action, but in the unity of the hero,.thus reversing absolutely 
the theory of Aristotle in the light of what he considered Shake- 
speare’s practice. 

Shakespeare employed plot not character, as a point of de- 
parture. Aristotle considered plot more important than char- 
acter, and Shakespeare was more Aristotelian in this respect 
than most critics admit. But he made his characters such out- 
standing personalities, he differentiated all classes and individuals 
so clearly that his admirers have generally believed that in order 
to imitate Shakespeare one only has to put many different kinds 
of people on the stage and have them go through many events. 
Character has become more important in modern drama than it 
was in Greek drama. Even Lessing exalts the importance of 
character far more than do his masters, Aristotle and Diderot. 
Yet few modern dramatists make the delineation of character the 
primary purpose of their art any more than did Shakespeare. 

Did Lessing ever regret having criticized Gottsched for not — 
having offered Shakespeare instead of Corneille as a model for 
German playwrights? Lessing certainly never followed the 
Elizabethan conception of dramatic art. His Emilia Galotti and 
even Nathan der Weise are far more French than English in 
technique. | } 

Lessing justly upbraided the critics who asserted that genius 
is stifled by rules. Nothing can stifle genius. Mediocre talent, — 
by following accepted canons of drama, can produce plays 


worthy of some consideration. But mediocre talent, which dis- 


regards all guidance, depends on its own inspiration, and invokes © : 
the name of Shakespeare, brings forth five acts of nonsense such — 


GERMAN DRAMA 471 


as Gerstenberg’s Ugolino (1768). The dramatist thought that he 
was imitating the originality and the voice of nature in Shake- 
speare. Original it was, but the voice of nature was merely the 
wild hysteria of Ugolino and his sons dying of starvation for 
five acts in a melodramatic tower. 

Enthusiasm for Shakespeare, because he disregarded the unities 
and produced great pictures of life and whole galleries of por- 
traits, enveloped the young Goethe. He wrote Goetz von Ber- 
lichingen (1773) without consideration for the special conditions 
and limitations of the physical theatre. When Shakespeare 
wrote, he thought of the spectator. When Goethe wrote Goetz, 
he thought of the reader. Goethe assumed a freedom which 
Shakespeare, though writing for a flexible stage, never allowed 
himself. Goetz contains fifty-four changes of scene in comparison 
to thirty-eight in Antony and Cleopatra and eighteen in Julius 
Cesar. ‘There are forty-one speaking characters in Goetz as 
against thirty-one in Julius Cesar. Goethe did not realize that 
the scene could change easily in the Elizabethan playhouse, be- 
cause there was practically no scenery to change; whereas in the 
German theatre scenery had to change with every shift of the 
scene of the action. Not only was this procedure difficult mechan- 
ically, but also psychologically. Each time that different scenery 
is disclosed to the eye, ii communicates new impressions to the 
mind. Less attention is paid to the actors for some minutes with 
the disclosure of each different set. In the Shakespearean play- 
house this distraction was reduced to a minimum. Notwith- 
standing the difference between the German and Elizabethan 
systems of stage decoration, some of the scenes in Goetz contain 
only five or six lines. Goethe said that Shakespeare’s plays were 
“curiosity boxes” and the “technique of the curiosity box” ac- 
tually became the ideal of such men as Klinger. 

Lessing was shocked. Even Herder, who was directly respon- 
sible for Goethe’s admiration for Shakespeare, admitted that 
Goethe had been spoiled by Shakespeare. The young playwright 
had surpassed his master in producing a kaleidoscopic series of 
scenes and characters; but, like his contemporaries, with the 


472 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


exception of Lessing, he failed to realize that Shakespeare was 
a master in the art of plotting, and therefore was careful in han- 
dling, foreshadowing, preparation, suspense, surprise, climax and 
dénouement. Whether these elements of dramatic art are funda- 
mental or are so important as depiction of character or as literary 
quality, does not enter into the question. The important point 
is that Goethe paid little or no attention to these very things 
which Shakespeare watched with care in constructing his plays. 
Goethe had condemned unity of action together with the unities 
of time and place. He had insisted that Shakespeare’s plots 
were not plots in the usual meaning of the word; but that his 
plays were the free expression of the ego. Shakespeare held 
the mirror up to nature; the romanticists held the mirror up 
themselves. Shakespeare is bafflingly impersonal as his would-be 
biographers soon learn. Goethe knew what he was doing; but 
he had a curious idea of what Shakespeare had done, although 
his view is still held by many admirers of Shakespeare who 
ascribe his greatness as a dramatist to a disregard of dramatic 
art. The grossest misinterpretation of Shakespeare’s art was 
that which led these young playwrights, including Goethe and 
Schiller, to believe that in writing closet drama they were imi- 
tating the Elizabethan dramatist. Of all dramatists, Shakespeare 
was the last who would have wasted his time composing unplay- 
able plays. Indeed, he spent much of his time merely rewriting 
plays in order to make them more playable. 

Goetz von Berlichingen became popular in book form and was 
produced on the stage. As a result of its success a premium 
was placed on loose construction in drama. Not only were the 
rules of French drama discarded, but also playwrights imitated 
the sketchiness of the Shakespearean form without regard for 
the logical development of his plots. This looseness of con- 
struction is especially apparent in the first dramas of Klinger. 
His Otto contains four plots and requires fifty-two changes of 
scenery. Das Leidende Weib requires thirty. Such exaggerated 
“technique of the curiosity box” could not last. When Klinger 
composed Die Zwillinge, which he wrote for production on the 


oo) eh cn 


GERMAN DRAMA 473 


stage, he allowed the scene to change only once within the act. 
The other changes occur at the beginning of the acts and only 
three settings are necessary. 

Klinger was correct in his belief that the Germans preferred 
the “life, action and events” of Shakespeare to the “resounding 
declamation” of French tragedy; but he failed to see that the 
life, action and events of Shakespeare were carefully arranged 
in relation to a dénouement. He believed erroneously that 
Shakespeare’s secondary episodes and parallel actions were inde- 
pendent of the plot instead of being carefully interwoven. Thus 
Klinger’s plays often contain events and characters which are 
totally unrelated. 

In imitation of Shakespeare he combined tragic and comic 
scenes and characters; and he had his melodramatic events ac- 
companied by supposedly sympathetic manifestations of nature, 
such as storms and gruesome nights. This practice was piously 
carried on by later melodramatic dramatists in Germany and 
France. 

He was so intent upon having his characters express their 
emotions that he failed to make clear the causes. Irritating 
obscurity pervades scene after scene in all his plays. Only by 
careful analysis and by piecing together details can one discover 
who the characters are and why they are acting as they do. 
In Das Leidende Weib he does not explain why the woman con- 
fesses her infidelity to her husband, nor does he show her so 
doing. One merely realizes rather vaguely that she must have 
made this confession on which the action depends. 

In 1776 Klinger produced Sturm und Drang (Storm and 
Stress) from which the period in German literature derived its 
name. His first title for this work, Wirrwarr (Imbroglio or Jum- 
ble) is more fitting, for the plot is submerged in a succession of 
scenes in which characters indulge in curious explosions of pas- 
sion. The voices of untrammelled nature are speaking; but na- 
ture is more restrained, more “regular” than these neurotic 
gentlemen of the Storm and Stress supposed. In Klinger’s plays, 
the passionate outbursts border often upon the abnormal. The 


474 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Freudians would find his characters a precious collection of per- 
sonalities to psychoanalyze. The modern dramatist who deals 
with pathological cases is not so original as he flatters himself 
to be. Klinger was the Strindberg of the eighteenth century. 
If one of his plays were produced anonymously with cubistic 
scenery at special matinées, long-haired men and short-haired 
women would believe that they had discovered an ultra-modern 
genius. Fortunately, theatre-goers are pretty normal individuals, 
and soon tire of abnormality when the apparent novelty has worn 
off. Unbridled romanticism must either calm down or it will 
be replaced entirely by common sense. German romantic drama 
calmed down even in the heydey of the Storm and Stress. The 
physical stage and the human audience are good balance wheels 
for dramatic art. Whether there are rules or not, there are cer- 
tain limits which drama has never successfully overstepped. 

In his Anmerkung tibers Theater (1774), Lenz attacked not 
only the French theorists, but also Aristotle. All rules must be 
abolished. Characters must take the placé of unity of action, 
because events are caused by character. German tragedy must 
be a series of events, which follow each other like thunderbolts, 
dominated by a principal character. Unity of action is pre- 
served if it concerns one person. 

In putting these theories into practice he wrote plays such as 
Die Soldaten (1776) in which secondary actions and unrelated 
events conceal the principal plot. The triviality and crudeness 
of many of the episodes produces a curious realism of which not 
a Diderot, but a Zola would approve. 

Heinrich Wagner was no less realistic but was more regular 
in the construction of some of his plots. His Kindermorderin 
(1776), as he first wrote it, might have been produced at the 
Théatre Antoine in Paris at the end of the next century. It is 
a domestic tragedy of a girl who is betrayed and then murders 
her starving baby. In spite of an unexplained and inexplicable 
villain who forges a fatal letter for no reason, the play is power- 
ful in its stark realism exhibited in such scenes as the one in 
which the girl croons a lullaby to her dead child. This situation, 


GERMAN DRAMA 475 


so easily made shocking, is actually dramatic. Still more daring 
is the scene in a low inn of the first act. Wagner’s Die Reue nach 
der That (1775) is also striking in its simplicity in an age when 
jumbled plots were the vogue. This play is a domestic tragedy 
which furnished ideas for Kabale und Liebe, and it was a con- 
necting link between Lessing and Schiller. 

Wagner’s technique shows the influence of Mercier whose essay 
on dramatic art, Du Thédtre (1773), he translated in 1776. 
Mercier was more revolutionary than his compatriots in regard to 
the unities of time and place and the number of acts. He advo- 
cated the removal of all barriers between dramatic forms. Yet 
no Frenchman of that time would have dreamed of disregarding 
the unity of action. Wagner constructed a simple, direct action, 
although he did not write primarily for the stage. He differs 
from, the French in that his realism is not only a transcript of 
life but includes scenes and details which would have shocked 
the French. Indeed, when his Kindermorderin was produced in 
Germany, the whole first act had to be dropped; and the tragic 
ending was unfortunately transformed into a weak, sentimental 
outcome. 

When the playwrights, including Schiller and Goethe, faced 
the question of presenting their plays on the stage before an 
audience, the voice of nature singing of the new freedom without 
regard to rules did not seem quite so enthralling. No matter 
how sincere an author may be in assuring the public that his 
play was not written for the stage, no matter how strongly he 
may believe that his muse cannot have its wings clipped by the 
shears of a stage director or be caged in a theatre, one has yet 
to discover the writer of closet drama who objected to his work 
being played. Generally after he has scored a success he finds 
that he can express his ideas on the stage before spectators. 

Schiller and Wagner altered the dénouements of their plays 
“written for the reader.” Klinger ceased to construct dramas 
needing over fifty changes of scenery, when a prize was offered in 
1775 by the Ackermann players for a drama to be produced. 
Goethe wrote Egmont. Schroeder adapted Lenz’s Hofmeister for 


476 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the stage and produced it. Lenz, who had written scornfully 
of the unity of place, began to apologize for Shakespeare’s fre- 
quent changes of scene. He wrote plays more fitted for produc- 
tion than his earlier work; and he remarked that Shakespeare’s 
practice did not justify young poets in imitating him in his 
peculiarities and that they should not try to make us believe 
that Shakespeare’s beauties lie simply in his irregularity. This 
statement from Lenz is significant, and a little amusing, in view 
of his earlier caustic remarks about regularity. In the glare of 
the footlights and in the sound of applause, certain ideals of 
freedom do not seem quite so indispensable to dramatic art. The 
theatre and the audience were calming down considerably the 
Storm and Stress of these passionate young lovers of liberty 
in art. ; 
In spite of the admiration of Shakespeare and the hostility 
towards French tragedy, the French drame was exerting a health- 
ful influence in the direction of regularity. Lessing had pro- 
duced in Miss Sara Sampson a play which anticipated the drame 
in many ways. Diderot’s and Mercier’s plays and theories had 
met with success in Germany. The interest in family life in- 
herent in Germans was favorable to the cultivation of a drama 
dealing with domestic problems. Lessing said correctly in 1781 
that Diderot had exerted more influence on German drama than 
on French. Yet this influence consisted in furnishing the theory 
and examples of a form of dramatic art which Lessing had first 
created independently of Diderot. The French drame did not 
bring forth, but strongly reinforced and supported the devel- 
opment of German domestic drama. Otto von Gemmingen’s 
Der Deutsche Hausvater was inspired by Diderot’s Pére de 
Famille. Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe is indebted to von Gem- 
mingen; but Lessing had given the German playwrights a finer 
example of that form of drama than Diderot ever produced. 
The strong interest in this kind of drama kept Germans in 
contact with well-made plays because Lessing, Diderot, Mercier, 
Saurin, etc., produced domestic dramas which were carefully 
constructed. Their admiration for Shakespeare did not lead 


GERMAN DRAMA 477 


them to the conclusion that all rules should be abolished, that 
drama should be a “jumble” or a “curiosity box.” Diderot rele- 
gated plot to a position of secondary importance; but no French 
playwright ever broke entirely with the Aristotelian ideal of 
the inevitable development of an action with a beginning, a mid- 
dle and an end. ‘A French Klinger is unthinkable even in peri- 
ods of revolt against rules. Although Klinger was dealing with 
domestic themes in what he naively believed was a Shake- 
spearean manner, the majority of playwrights, including Schiller 
in his Kabale und Liebe, were naturally under the influence of 
the well-made play when they built their plots dealing with do- 
mestic problems. Schiller, himself, admired Diderot greatly. In 
this play, the dramatist employed the form which Lessing had 
introduced first in Miss Sara Sampson and later in Emilia 
Galottt. Kabale und Liebe is more complex and has more 
characters than the usual domestic tragedy, for Schiller learned 
simplicity with difficulty ; but he added nothing new to dramatic 
art in this drama, although it is the best constructed play of 
his youthful period. 

Only Fiesko of his early plays was originally written to be 
played. He said of Die Rauber: ‘This play is to be regarded 
as a dramatic narrative, in which, for the purpose of tracing out 
the innermost workings of the soul, advantage has been taken 
of the dramatic method, without otherwise conforming to the 
stringent rules of theatrical composition, or seeking the dubious 
advantage of stage adaptation.” Unmindful of Lessing’s sound 
exposition of the true Aristotelian theory, he classed Aristotle 
with Batteux as having prescribed narrow limits for drama. 
Completely under the spell of what was then thought to be Shake- 
spearean dramatic art, and especially inspired by King Lear, 
Schiller wrote a play which totally disregards that strict econ- 
omy necessary for dramatic art. Had his play never been pro- 
duced or had he not as a rule produced dramas of many epi- 
sodes and motives, his choice of the form of large proportions 
would be without significance. But Schiller’s work is impor- 
tant in this respect in the history of German drama and in the 


478 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


development of French drama. Like Schiller, even partially be- 
cause of Schiller’s example, the same prolixity and vastness en- 
ters the work of the elder Dumas and Hugo. The latter’s Crom- 
well is of even greater length than Die Rduber. 

Plays containing many characters and episodes and written 
by poets such as Goethe and Schiller, who have deep insight into 
the human soul and its problems, are baffling problems both to 
director and dramatic critic. They have undeniable power. Be- 
cause they are works of thoughtful men, they contain a central 
idea. This central idea is easily interpreted as constituting unity 
of action. It is constantly said of such plays that “they repre- 
sent real life”; “they depict a world catastrophe”; “they are 
man struggling with destiny.” By careful critical study ex- 
tending over years upon years the relationship of every episode 
to the dramatist’s main idea can be discovered. The play is 
found to resemble a vast mural painting, with intricate but 
unified design. But just as the physical eye can behold only 
fragmentary beauties of a mural painting on more than one 
wall, so it seems that the mind’s eye cannot understand the 
whole inner unity of a drama of many different episodes 
in the theatre. The play may be a “world in itself”; but the 
world in itself is too great to be set before us on the stage. 
Many critics conclude that, because dramatic art has psycho- 
logical and physical limitations, dramatic narrative transcends 
drama. It would be just as enlightening and just as true to 
hold that the epic transcends the sonnet. 

It would be going too far to say that Schiller was not at 
home on the stage; yet this embarrassment at the narrow lim- 


its of classical tragedy or even of any form of drama is mani- 


fest in all his plays except Kabale und Liebe, Maria Stuart and 
Die Braut von Messina. There are two distinct groups of scenes 
in Die Rauber portraying events which happen to the brothers. 
These two actions join in the latter part of the play. About 
four and a half acts are devoted to preparation. Wéhelm Tell 
has three actions. Don Carlos is a maze of intrigue. Schiller 
found a prologue necessary in addition to the five acts full of 


GERMAN DRAMA 470 


events for the presentation of Die Jungfrau von Orleans. To 
treat the subject of Wallenstein, Schiller was content with no 
less than three plays—two of them in five acts. The plot of 
Fiesko has more ramifications than that of Othello. These 
dramas resemble powerful but ponderous German sentences 
with many modifying phrases and parentheses, each of which 
has a bearing on the main idea but whose very presence is dis- 
tracting. Just as powerful an impression and a clearer one 
could have been made, if a simpler and less prolix form had 
been employed. 

In order to give the background of the subject of Wallen- 
stein, the dramatist takes a whole play to represent the army 
and its life. He presents it completely and minutely. The in- 
fluence of the army is a part of the action, but it is not so im- 
portant as to require such careful presentation. This over- 
emphasis distorts the action of the following ten acts. The Ro- 
man citizens are the background of Julius Cesar; but Shake- 
speare did not need a whole play to paint that background vividly 
and completely enough for the spectator to experience the sensa- 
tions aroused by the mob and to understand its effect on the 
situation. Schiller learned from Shakespeare the dramatic value 
of the crowd and of mass actions. Unfortunately he did not 
acquire, at the same time, the feeling for balance and for 
dramatic economy. He overemphasized, and did not illumine 
with quick strokes which vivify because they come like flashes 
of light. 

However, in spite of this prolixity, Schiller’s use of mass 
effects was a notable development of dtamatic art. Greek drama 
with its chorus, Shakespearean drama with its mobs, had not 
only presented an interesting spectacle but also a psychological 
element in human life. When dramatic art came under the 
sway of French classicism, mass effects disappeared. ‘Through 
his admiration for Julius Cesar, Schiller revived this element 
of drama which is effective but very .difficult to handle. His 
plays glow with colorful pictures as his many characters or his 
crowds come and go in ever-varying combinations. They are 


480 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


like a kaleidoscope. How rich and varied they must have 
seemed to the audience in comparison with the severe French 
dramas or even those of Lessing! And these scenes do not 
merely furnish local color picturesquely. Schiller’s ensemble 
scenes have a dramatic significance. One cannot say so much 
for all of Hugo’s and Dumas’ scenes which they staged under 
his inspiration. Such moments in their plays often resemble 
Schiller’s scenes outwardly but not inwardly. The French were 
too content with producing merely local color. That a scene is 
historically correct, or even atmospherically correct is not suf- 
ficient reason for its existence. An ensemble scene is only jus- 
tified completely if it is a vital part of the interpretation of the 
central idea of the drama. 

This quality of dramatic significance which Schiller put into 
his mass effects makes them artistic; but his too frequent and 
prolonged use of them sometimes obscures the central theme. 
Schiller appeals so strongly to the eye, he calls upon the spec- 
tator to witness so many characters in different combinations 
_ that the inner meaning of his play becomes vague at times, al- 
though the reader of his dramas can follow the development of 
the ideas with comparative ease. In this respect Schiller is not 
at home in the theatre. The ability of an audience of the 
highest mentality to understand certain plays is limited as well 
as enlarged by the fact that the impressions come through the 
eye and ear simultaneously. The phrase “too vast for the 
stage” often means “too vast for the audience,” even though the 
audience be composed of the keenest critics who use the first 
expression to justify their admiration for some play in book 
form. 

The development of distinct characters is also one of Schiller’s 
contributions to dramatic art. Since Shakespeare, no playwright 
had succeeded so well as Schiller in making most of his person- 
ages distinct entities. Moliére’s and Racine’s creations are more 
abstract and general types. Schiller was able to differentiate 
even the minor characters and to endow with personality rdles 
that he does not trouble to name. 7 


GERMAN DRAMA 481 


His principal characters such as Wallenstein, Johanna, Maria 
Stuart, Posa and Fiesko are dynamic personalities. Whatever they 
do or think, whether they show will power or a lack of will 
power, they are interesting individuals to watch. For many 
dramatists, characters only have an existence in the play itself. 
Their past is disregarded. Hamlet would be clearer to us had 
Shakespeare told’ us what kind of a child and boy he was. 
Schiller has supplied us with important information in several 
instances. The prologue of Die Jungfrau von Orleans serves to 
show us what Johanna was in her village. The use of this de- 
vice illustrates once more Schiller’s insistence upon background 
or environment, as it would be called today. It also shows how 
he sacrificed dramatic economy. In Maria Stuart, however, he 
is eminently successful in showing the heroine’s past and giving 
a complete analysis of her whole character as affected by her 
past without using the device of the prologue. In Don Carlos 
he calls up events which took place before the first act in order 
to illumine his characters. This procedure is similar to the 
Greek practice of unveiling the past to cause a development in 
the plot; but the Greek dramatists did not disclose the past in 
relation to character. 

Interesting as Schiller’s characters are, they are not always 
consistent. The action does not always follow logically from 
their state of mind. Only in Wallenstein’s Tod and Maria 
Stuart is one impressed by the inevitability of the action as a 
result of the interplay of character and event. Goethe in a 
conversation with Eckermann summed up Schiller’s defects as 
a dramatist as follows: “He seized boldly on a great subject 
and turned it this way and that. But he saw his object, as it 
were, only on the outside; a quiet development from its interior 
was not within his province. His talent was more desultory. 
Thus he was never decided—could never have done. He often 
changed a part just before a rehearsal. And as he went boldly 
to work, he did not take sufficient pains about motivating his 
plays.” 

This criticism applies to Schiller’s early dramas; and per- 


482 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


haps Goethe is partially responsible for these faults, because | 


his Goetz, which Schiller admired, is lacking in motivation. 
Schiller’s Don Carlos is marred by the number of changes made 
in the play and by the different conceptions of the action which 
the dramatist had from time to time while writing it. Schiller 
seems never to have been sure whether Posa or Don Carlos is 
the hero. Both characters lose in effectiveness, because inter- 
est and sympathy are divided. Two or three Schillers seem to 
have collaborated in producing the tragedy. Each seems to have 
added something germane to the subject, but not absolutely 
necessary to the action. 

The lack of preparation is most unfortunate in Die Jungfrau 
von Orleans. Johanna has been presented to us as a woman so 
inspired by her divine mission that earthly love, love of woman 
for man, is unthinkable for her, although she is urged to marry. 
The idea has been hammered home throughout a whole scene. 
She is fighting a certain Lionel, is victorious and is about to 
slay him, when suddenly she loves him. ‘That she loves and that 
she loves him—in whom neither she nor the spectator has had 
any interest—are almost incredible facts suddenly brought be- 
fore our eyes. Yet the rest of the action develops from this 
coup de thédtre, so surprising, so unmotivated as to be false to 
her character. That Johanna, winsome though sexless, was 
loved by any man is not strange; but that she should love needs 
careful motivation and explanation. Timme gave Schiller the 
sound advice to study Goetz less and Lessing more. Had he 
followed this suggestion he would have introduced fewer sur- 
prises into his actions. His plots would have been less artificial 
and his characters would not have acted so often on flimsy pre- 
texts or on no pretext at all. 

He had a strong tendency towards the melodramatic; and he 
introduced thrilling incidents which excite but do not convince 
the spectator. He introduced such scenes when his theme should 
be receiving all his attention. In Fiesko, when the whole ques- 
tion of the destiny of Genoa and of liberty is at stake, he 
stages a scene, laboriously prepared in enigmatic lines which 


GERMAN DRAMA 483 


arouse only curiosity, in which Fiesko shows his true feeling 
of contempt for the coquette Julia while his wife is concealed 
behind the tapestry. At the end of the play Fiesko’s wife dons 
the scarlet cloak of Gianetto. Fiesko, catching sight of the 
cloaked figure, believes it is his enemy and stabs his own wife. 
The whole act is a series of similar theatrical incidents, which 
take place without reason or even preparation, in spite of 
Schiller’s statement in the preface that drama does not allow the 
interposition either of chance or of a particular providence. 

Such lapses into melodramatic and theatrical effects are all 
the more regrettable because of Schiller’s ability to characterize 
and because he always tried to give his plays a profound mean- 
ing. His ultimate aim was not a stirring drama. Like many 
playwrights of the century, he used drama to teach directly cer- 
tain ideals, such as liberty, and to inveigh against social and po- 
litical tyranny. A dramatist who has something to prove must 
employ sparingly theatrical tricks, which may be used with 
impunity by a Scribe whose ultimate aim is to fascinate for 
three hours. 

Schiller was not content to hold the mirror up to nature, to 
allow the audience to see human life in its manifold problems, 
both grave and gay. He could not always refrain from taking 
possession of a character and speaking through it. Louisa is 
too sophisticated, didactic and sententious in the latter part of 
Kabale und Liebe, especially in her interview with Lady Mil- 
ford. If drama must teach, it must do so unobtrusively, by 
guiding the spectator in making deductions from the story that 
is unfolded on the stage. Whether the play be tragic or comic, 
if one comes out of the theatre with deeper insight into human 
nature and with the conviction that the moral law prevails, the 
dramatist has fulfilled his function completely. We do not go 
to the theatre to listen to the Ten Commandments in versions 
less forcible than the original. 

This enumeration of Schiller’s faults must not biind us to 
his power as a dramatist. His ability to create character, to 
endow whole groups of people with dramatic life, to present so 


484 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


much of humanity and of human nature to an audience during a 
few hours marks him as a man of genius. His talent was desul- 
tory but it was flexible. Though embarrassed by the stage, he 
showed that the theatre could contain vaster themes than it had 
held since Shakespeare’s time. When Schiller became more at 
home in the playhouse, he turned more and more to Greek drama. 
Cidipus Rex became his model. He wrote to Goethe (October 
2nd, 1797) that he was seeking tragic material of the kind of 
(Edipus Rex which is a “tragic analysis” of past events. Every- 
thing has happened and only needs to be unfolded. Also, as he 
pointed out, the past is more terrible because it is unalterable and 
the fear that something has happened affects our feelings very 
differently from the fear that it might happen. He was the first 
of the moderns to realize the dramatic effectiveness of unveil- 
ing the past. So he wrote Die Braut von Messina (1802) in 
imitation of Sophocles. Together with Goethe’s Iphigenie, it 
brought back a form of dramatic art which had been discredited 
because pseudo-classical tragedy had lost most of the essential 
elements of true classicism. 

It was a long journey from Die Rauber, a dramatic narra- 
tive, to Die Braut von Messina; but Schiller accomplished it. 
When dramatic art in England and in France had fallen upon 
evil days of triviality and of academic sterility, Schiller was 
bearing the torch from which other men were to receive guidance 
and to kindle their own fires of inspiration. The young roman- 
ticists in France took from him many a theatrical scene; but 
they also learned from him how to depict life in glowing colors. 
His great contribution to dramatic art is the mass effect, the 
presentation of a little world on the modern stage. His art was 
not flawless in this respect and he sacrificed much to these 
effects; but the stage was richer and glowed with life and color 
because he wrote of many men. 


a a ae - 


CHAPTER XVI 
FRENCH MELODRAMA. FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 


HE last decade of the eighteenth century brought a po- 
litical and economic revolution, but dramatic art remained 
practically unchanged in France. Plays with republican senti- 
ments were popular and the sentimental drame had a revival. 
Fenouillot de Falbaire’s Honnéte Criminel scored a success in 
1790; and in the same year Arnaud’s Comte de Comminges, a 
sombre drame written in 1764, was finally produced. There was 
nothing new until Lemercier’s Pinto (1799) in which are traces 
of the influence of Macbeth in the scene of the murder and the 
scene in which Egisthe tries to soothe the remorse of Clytemnes- 
tre. Like Voltaire, Lemercier felt that French tragedy needed 
new inspiration, but he was far from becoming a romanticist. 
His Pinto is an historical comedy in which the grave is min- 
gled with the gay, although the rule of separation of tragedy 
and comedy was enforced as strictly as possible by critics and 
the Academicians. Lemercier presented characters of high rank 
in situations of farce comedy. He observed the unity of time 
rather loosely, and the scene changed from act to act. The 
plot deals with a conspiracy to place the Duc de Bragance on the 
throne of Portugal. Plots and characters of this kind had formed 
the material of countless tedious tragedies; but Lemercier makes 
Pinto, a kind of Figaro, the principal plotter. By weaving in 
love episodes of a light nature, by using disguises, quiproquo, 
rope ladders, closets from which unexpected people come, he 
turned the play into a comedy which resembles Beaumarchais’ 
Mariage de Figaro in some of its tricks of legerdemain. The 
apparatus was being prepared for the greatest of all dramatic 
tricksters—Eugéne Scribe. Indeed, the romanticists, who thirty 
years later were to take themselves so seriously, did not disdain 
485 


486 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


such situations as a background for their poetical melodramas. 

In the Boulevard theatres the melodrama was continuing to 
develop. Monvel in his Victimes Cloitrées (1791) produced a 
fourth act which offered inspiration scenically and theatrically 
for future thrillers. Dorval, the hero, has been thrown into a 
dungeon by the traitorous Pére Laurent. On the other side of 
the double subterranean vault languishes his fiancée, Eugénie, 
who has been abducted by the “traitor.” Both compartments 
are exposed to view. 

Dorval discovers in a tomb of a former prisoner a letter writ- 
ten in blood which shows him how to procure tools left by the 
unfortunate victim. He makes his escape and rescues the hero- 
ine. The persecuted virtuous woman and the villain or “traitor,” 
as he was called, are two stock characters of melodrama. 

The Chéteau du Diable (1792) by Loaisel Tréogate also offers 
a melodramatic story embellished with spectres and other 
strange inhabitants of a mysterious castle where iron cages 
and warning inscriptions suddenly appear. The hero, of course, 
is passing through terrifying dangers for the sake of the lovely 
Adélaide. All these tests, however, have been merely devised 
by the heroine’s uncle to prove the virtue and bravery of the 
hero! 

In the Forét Périlleuse (1797) Loaisel Tréogate sends Colisan 
through a series of real adventures in his quest for his lady. 
Here are the brigands, Schiller’s brigands, who were growing 
in popularity on the melodramatic stage. They capture the 
heroine and imprison her in a cave. Colisan discovers her, is 
caught, condemned to death and executed—or rather would have 
been, had not Morgan, pretending to be a bandit, saved him 
just before the curtain! 

In the same year, the great master of melodrama, Pixerécourt, 
made his début as author of a one-act comedy, the Petits Au- 
vergnats, which contains in miniature much of his technique. 
Here is a virtuous wife who has been abducted from her hus- 
band by the traitor Rosambel. The husband believes she has 
deserted him; but she returns after two years spent in a dun- 


FRENCH MELODRAMA 487 


geon, and her innocence is proved by a letter. The comic rdle, 
which was to become very important in melodrama, was also 
introduced in this play. 

A few months later, Victor ou l’Enfant de la Forét was pro- 
duced. Pixerécourt had written it as an opera, with scenes of 
spoken dialogue; but another lyric drama of the same name was 
accepted at the Théatre Favart. So he gave his version to the 
Ambigu Comique where it was produced successfully without 
lyric passages but with a musical accompaniment in certain 
scenes. Victor opened a long series of successful melodramas 
written by Pixerécourt, Caigniez and others for the delight of 
the bourgeois audiences in the opening years of the nineteenth 
century, while senescent classical tragedy was boring the in- 
tellectuals and before romantic drama furnished its compromise 
form for both classes. Roger, the bandit in Pixerécourt’s Vic- 
tor, owes his existence to Schiller’s Karl von Moor in Die 
Rauber. WHernani will also be an outlaw. Pixerécourt, as well 
as Dumas and Hugo, read Shakespeare, Scott, Goethe, Schiller 
and Kotzebue; but Pixerécourt was a writer of plays for the 
people who care naught whence comes their amusement. He 
borrowed scenes and situations from these foreign writers with- 
out throwing down the gauntlet to any literary coterie and 
without enrolling himself under the banner of Shakespeare, as 
will Dumas and Hugo. Yet he blazed the trail for the roman- 
ticists. . 

These melodramas follow a basic formula. A virtuous woman 
undergoes dire sufferings at the hands of a traitor; but strict 
poetic justice is meted out. The virtuous characters are re- 
warded and the traitors are either punished or die repenting 
their sins. A comic character is usually numbered among the 
virtuous and often plays an important rdéle in the dénouement. 
This character is an old soldier, a servant of some sort, or may 
be a rather good-natured coward on the side of the traitor. 

In order to furnish the requisite number of exciting situations 
leading to suspense and coups de thédtre, the events leading up 
to the initial cause are numerous and strange. Abductions, dis- 


488 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


guises, supposed deaths, unknown identities, all the old tricks 
of classical comedy are brought into play. In order to arouse 
suspense these events are explained to the audience earlier than 
in classical comedy, in which the explanation serves as a dénoue- 
ment. The point of attack is late in the story; and the melo- 
dramas observe the unities, as a rule, although the scene changes 
from act to act. Although unhampered by classical traditions, 
these playwrights did not imitate the story-telling methods of 
either English or German dramatists. 

The late point of attack and the necessity of explaining many 
events made the expositions inartistic. A monologue or a long 
recital in dialogue were the frank methods employed. However, 
since confidants were not introduced, these expositions escaped 
much of the solemn tedium of the corresponding scenes of con- 
temporary tragedy. They are as direct as possible, and are 
often enlivened by comedy. The novel scenery also lends an 
interest to the exposition. In Caigniez’ Forét d’Hermanstad, a 
ghostly, ruined gothic hall stimulates attention; and in Pixeré- 
court’s Tékéli, the hero is discovered in a tree while a storm 
rages through the forest. The aim of the melodrama is to pro- 
duce thrills as often and as early as possible. 

The plot unfolds rapidly. The plays consist of three acts; 
and the act itself is treated as a separate unit, ending with a 
climax and a striking line. The change of scene from act to 
act emphasizes this unity. Most of the events are on the stage, 
only those being reported which cannot happen in the par- 
ticular place which is represented by the scenery. No problem 
or theme or character is portrayed with rigorous logic. The 
point of departure is a plot filled with strange events and thrills 
to which everything is sacrificed, except the virtue and life of 
the heroine. Innocence, as well as murder, will out in melo- 
drama. | 

Even in Pixerécourt’s Femme a@ Deux Maris, Elisa, the wife 
of the two men, is a paragon of virtue. She was forced to marry 


the villain. She bore him a son, but she believes the father to _ 


be dead. She has made a happy second marriage. The first P 


FRENCH MELODRAMA 489 


husband, Fritz, returns to blackmail her. Count Edouard, the 
second husband, saves Fritz from death when he is recognized 
as an old deserter from the army. He is planning to send Fritz 
away with money. Edouard also is going to leave his wife 
until death decides which man shall be her husband. Fritz 
orders Walter, one of his henchmen, to kill the “second man” 
who crosses the garden at a certain hour that night. The 
faithful Bataille, the comic character, overhears the plan. At 
the appointed hour, Bataille crosses the garden first. Then comes 
Fritz, now the “second man.” Walter slays him. “Papers” in 
his portfolio prove the innocence of Elisa. 

An added attraction for the audience in these plays is a specta- 
cle in form of a féte with a dance, or a review and parade of 
soldiers. ‘The divertissement, however, grows out of the situa- 
tion. There are also sieges of chateaux, battles and duels to 
hold the audience breathless over the fate of the hero and 
heroine. ‘The scenery is very elaborate and the directions for 
it are given in detail. Forests, gardens, inn-yards, gothic halls, 
palaces, courtyards, peasants’ huts, landscapes with bridges and 
waterfalls, decks of ships, caverns and mines were constructed 
with care. The back drop was painted like a large picture; but 
in many plays the rocks, walls, stairways and bridges had to be 
practical. The stage carpenters of the Opéra, Matis and Des- 
roches, did not consider it beneath their dignity to build compli- 
cated sets for the melodrama, which made the “vestibule of a 
palace” of classical tragedy appear as monotonous and flat as the 
tragedy itself. The audience of a melodrama had plenty to see, 
as well as to hear. Spectacle, which had been a novelty except 
at the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique, had now become a regular 
part of the plays in the lesser theatres. 

Classical tragedy was both senescent and obsolescent. It was 
being kept alive artificially. The Napoleonic era witnessed a 
revival of Greek and Roman ideals in art. Napoleon himself 
posed as a Roman clad in a toga and wearing a Roman crown 
of leaves. Classical tragedy was considered the glorious in- 
heritance of the past. It was almost the official form of drama 


490 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


in the opinion of Napoleon and of the Academy. A writer of 
tragedy outranked a comic playwright in the hierarchy of the 
intellectuals. The art of the greatest actors, among whom was 
Talma, was employed to vivify these inferior imitations of great 
tragedies of a bygone age. Costumes were specially designed 
and fresh settings were painted for new productions. Talma 
carried on the reform in costume begun by Lekain. He was a 
friend of David, the classical painter, who helped to inspire 
him with a taste for exact local color. In 1789, Talma appeared 
in the play Brutus wearing a Roman toga. He also toned down 
the emphasis of tragic declamation. If anyone could have saved 
tragedy, it was Talma. But all the learned doctors, skilled nurses 
and loving friends could not save the venerable and paar 
respectable patient. 

Reform, not revolution, was the desire of Lemercier who had 
written in 1796, apropos of Pinto, that he had striven “to strip 
a great action of all poetic ornament which might disguise it; to 
present persons speaking and acting as one does in real life, and 
to reject the sometimes false prestige of tragedy and felicitous 
verses.” The dialogue in his plays is often terse and direct; 
bee he did not give up the tirades so beloved by the declamatory 
actors. 

In his Christophe Colomb (1809), he went so far as to break 
the unities of time and of place. The first act is in front of the 
house of Columbus. The second act passes at the court of Isa- 
bella, while the third reveals the very unclassical scene of the 
cabin of the ship of Columbus just before land is sighted. When 
the play was produced at the Odéon, the audience indulged in 
more than a preliminary skirmish to the battle of Hernani. 
Several heads were cracked over the question of the unities in 
spite of the fact that the author had apologized in advance in a 
Note de l’Auteur for infringing for once the sacred classical rules 
in which he professed absolute faith. He denied any intention 
“of opening up new roads.” He only wished to try all those 
that art could offer. At the second performance of his so-called 
Shakespearean comedy, a spectator was killed in the pit. The 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 491 


classical audience evidently objected only to bloodshed and scenes 
of violence on the stage. Horace had failed to lay down rules 
in his Ars Poetica protecting the audience. Just who these gen- 
tlemen were who fought so valiantly that night against classicism, 
history does not record. They were not yet an organized band 
calling themselves romanticists; but they rioted partially under 
the Shakespearean banner. 

Lemercier himself was not a romanticist and never became one. 
His lectures on dramatic art given in 1810-1811 at the Athénée 
prove his orthodoxy in regard to classicism in theory, even if 
he sinned at times in practice. The classical Academy accepted 
him into their holy-of-holies, though not without reproof for his 
lapses from the true classical faith. 

The war, which was to last until the battle of Hernani in 1830, 
was started. Lessing had bitterly attacked French classical 
drama in his Hamburgische Dramaturgie with little effect so far 
as the French were concerned. In 1808, Schlegel launched his 
criticism of the drama of the Old Régime. He found a devoted 
pupil and follower in the brilliant though prolix Mme. de Staél, 
who admitted her inability to keep silent on any interesting sub- 
ject. In her book De l’Allemagne (1813), she echoed certain 
ideas of Schlegel and added suggestions of her own in regard to 
a new form of drama for the French. She brought the word 
“romantic” into prominence as the appellation of a new theory 
of art. She complained, as had Schlegel, that any innovation 
in tragedy was met with the cry of “melodrama.” The unities of 
time and place hamper the dramatist. The pomp of Alexandrine 
verse and the rules of good taste banish many legitimate emo- 
tions from the theatre. The less regular foreign plays produce 
stronger emotions. ‘In some French tragedies there are as vio- 
lent situations as in English or German tragedies; but these 
situations are not presented with all their force and sometimes 
by affectation the effect is softened, or rather effaced.” The 
vulgar, in nature, often mingles with the sublime and sometimes 
increases its effect; but the French audience cannot be con- 
vinced that a comic scene is employed to bring out a tragic 


492 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART . 


situation. The finest French tragedies no longer interest the 
people. Is it not necessary to find out why the melodramas 
are so popular? French literature is menaced by sterility. For- 
eign plays may well be studied, not necessarily in view of adopt- 
ing their technique, but to stimulate new ideas. 

Benjamin Constant praised German drama, while upholding 
the severity of French technique, in his preface to an adapta- 
tion of Schiller’s Wallenstein published in 1809. He forced the 
German trilogy into a single play in five acts in order to observe 
the unities. He omitted many scenes and characters with some 
regret. Although he admired the scene of the conspirators, he 
could not reproduce it because “the language of these assassins 
is as vulgar as their condition and sentiments.” He pointed out 
that characters in French tragedy are only types, while Richard 
III is an individual because all his characteristics are included 
in Shakespeare’s delineation of the man. The limitations of 
French tragedy are clearly explained; but, Constant, like Vol- 
taire of old, feared that if the French playwrights were allowed 
liberty, nothing would be seen on the stage except “scaffolds, 
combats, fétes, spectres and changes of scenery.” 

In 1820, Lebrun felt that he was the awaited innovator when 
he produced a pale imitation of Schiller’s Maria Stuart. He 
hoped, not without fear, that people would be grateful to him 
for “having brought about the alliance of two Muses who seemed 
to have been irreconcilable enemies and for having finally intro- 
duced on the French stage, without wounding the severity of 
our taste and our rules, forms and colors which our dramatic 
literature lacked,’ and which he believed “to be indispensable 
to modern tragedy.” He was attempting the impossible, for 
French tragedy could not be reformed or enlarged without of- 
fending the rules. He suppressed the local color, and all fa- 
miliar human touches of the original play. He simplified the 
plot and either toned down or left out many dramatic scenes. 
Whatever was strikingly novel or romantic was sacrificed to 
the rules; and the result was merely another classical tragedy. 

Another attack on the unities came from beyond the frontiers 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 493 


of France from Manzoni, a disciple of Goethe and a student of 
Schlegel, in a Lettre a@ M. Chauvet and in the preface to his 
romantic play, the Conte di Carmagnola (1820). This historical 
drama was translated into French and published in the Chefs 
d’Guvre des Théatres Etrangers (1822). This collection in sey- 
eral volumes offered translations of German, English, Danish, 
Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Portugese, Russian and Swedish dramas 
translated by Andrieux, Constant, Guizot, Nodier, Rémusat, Vil- 
lemain and others. The education of the French theatre-goer in 
regard to foreign dramatic art was progressing. Trognon, the 
translator of the Conte di Carmagnola, remarked: “This tragedy 
is composed in the system that we have agreed, somewhat un- 
fittingly, to call romantic.” The adjective employed by Mme. de 
Staél was being used. Trognon defined romantic drama as one 
which, aiming to represent human life with all its principal acci- 
dents, to revive history in its entirety, oversteps the arbitrary 
limits of classical tragedy. He carefully refrained from passing 
judgment on either form of drama. 

Stendhal, however, had the courage of his convictions. He had 
seen Shakespeare’s plays performed in London. He boldly pro- 
claimed that romanticism is the art of presenting to different 
peoples the works of literature which, in the present state of 
their customs and beliefs are susceptible of giving them the 
greatest possible pleasure; that classicism presents to them the 
literature which gave the greatest pleasure to their great-grand- 
fathers. Here was not a foreigner, but a Frenchman declaring 
war upon classical tragedy and attacking the unities. The argu- 
ments set forth in his Racine et Shakespeare (1822) were not 
new, but they are brilliantly and fearlessly expressed. He pointed 
out the enemies: The old classical rhetoricians, the Academicians, 
the classical playwrights who were making money, the news- 
papers that gave an erroneous impression of romanticism. He 
struck at the great idol: Racine no longer pleases. Shakespeare 
does. Frenchmen must imitate Shakespeare. 

Even Lemercier took courage and produced in 1823 his Richard 
III et Jeanne Shore, drame historique imité de Shakespeare et 


494 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


de Rowe. Actually the play is founded almost entirely on 
Rowe’s Jane Shore. The mention of Shakespeare is pure ad- 
vertisement, for only a few unimportant details of Lemercier’s 
portraiture of Richard are drawn from Richard III. However, 
the fact that Shakespeare’s name comes first on the title page, 
where it hardly belongs at all, shows the increasing prestige of 
the Bard of Avon in France in spite of the occurrence of the 
year before when, on the thirty-first of July, 1822, a troupe of 
English actors playing Othello at the Porte-Saint-Martin had been 
driven off the stage with cries of: “Down with Shakespeare! He 
is an aide of Wellington!” But it was one thing to play Othello 
in English and quite another to adapt one of Shakespeare’s plays 
in order to make it “bearable to the noble and delicate taste of 
the French public,” and to have Talma in the cast. 

Lemercier did not allow the scenery to change during the act. 
“Such an irregularity wounds our perfected art.” He preferred 
to allow Jeanne Shore to wander about the Tower of London, 
where she does not belong, than to change the scene to her home. 
However, the second act shows her apartment, at night, illumi- 
nated by lamps. “Everything in gothic style,” in this scene; 
and “everything in the style of architecture with ornaments of 
the fifteenth century” in the set of the third act representing the 
council hall of the palace. The fifth act takes place in a public 
square. The gothic style, local color and change of scenery 
smack of melodrama and foreshadow the romantic settings of 
1830. . | 

Finding that the change of scenery from act to act and the non- 
observance of the unity of place had not brought down upon his 
head the wrath of the gods, Lemercier ventured to state in his 
preface, in italics, that Aristotle had not absolutely prescribed 
the unity of place. Here spoke the playwright, not the pro- 
fessor of the Cours Analytique de Littérature who had pro- 
claimed the unities inviolable. | 

The play was called historic drama; but “tragic dignity” was 
invoked by the author to explain his “corrections” of the English 
play. Thus he could not have Shore disguised as an old servant, 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 495 


nor could the lackey repulse Jeanne on Alicia’s doorstep, nor 
could Alicia pour vindictive imprecations upon Jeanne. Le- 
mercier had to tone down the sins of Jeanne after the usual 
classical custom. The duel between Shore and Hastings had 
to be omitted. It was a trick of the ‘lower theatre,” z.e., melo- 
drama; while in his opinion the substitution of the “papers” by 
Alicia was a bit of thimble-rigging unworthy of a comic opera. 
He suppressed the very things in 1823 which Dumas and Hugo 
were to introduce on the French stage in 1830. 

Yet he allowed his heroine to die of hunger miserably—in the 
street. He invented a beggar, who is too sentimental, but is 
certainly not a classical figure. Finally, he said in his preface: 
“The local color, which the accusation of this magic spreads 
over this terrible picture of the physical and moral deformities 
of Gloster, makes the epoch live in the eyes of the spectator.” 
In Talma’s representation of the deformed Gloster, was there 
a touch of the “grotesque’—that other watchword of Hugo? 
If there was, Boileau must have begun to turn in his grave; 
and Lemercier would turn in his, if he were classed among the 
hated romanticists. 

“The public wanted something new but was on guard against 
the new,” said Lebrun in regard to the failure of his Cid d’An- 
dalousie (1825). ‘This play was too close an imitation of the 
Estrella de Sevilla (wrongly attributed to Lope de Vega) to suit 
the classicists and not revolutionary enough to arouse the in- 
terest of the romanticists. 

Stendhal had said that Scott’s novels were romantic tragedy 
mingled with long descriptions. The reading public devoured 
his stories with avidity. It was brought into contact with stir- 
ring historical scenes and local color in book form. In 1827 the 
lesser dramatists began to use Kenilworth, Quentin Durward and 
other novels as sources of their plays. Hugo began to write 
his Cromwell, which was not to be played. Dumas was studying 
Schiller’s plays, which had been translated in 1821. Neither of 
these young men had found himself as a dramatist. A coup de 
thédtre was needed to arouse the future leaders of the dramatic 


496 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


revolution. It came in the shape of performances of Shakespeare 
by English actors at the Odéon. 

On September 11, 1827, Kemble and Miss Smithson were 
enthusiastically received in Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet also 
succeeded in spite of cuts in the text and the mediocrity of 
the actors in the secondary roles. Othello aroused criticism. 
The scene of the murder, as usually played at that time, in 
which Desdemona was stabbed three or four times as well as 
smothered, was too brutal. It was denounced by critics as a 
“hideous and disgusting butchery.” According to the Pandore 
neither the men nor the women in the audience could bear the 
spectacle. The “brutal” scenes of Shakespeare affected the 
French audience as the ultra-realistic plays of the Grand Guignol 
affect us today. They produced a new, but unpleasant thrill. 

Hugo, Gautier, Dumas, Berlioz were among the young men 
in the audiences. They did not understand English but followed 
the plays by studying Guizot’s translation (1821). To young 
Dumas, Shakespeare was a revelation which threw him into a 
delirium of enthusiasm and inspired him to write plays. He 
hailed Shakespeare as “the man who created most, after God.” 
Berlioz got wrought up to such a pitch of excitement that he 
married Miss Smithson with whom he played a stormy romantic 
drama in real life. Not so much could be expected of the sixteen- 
year-old Gautier, but he soon began to dream of the scarlet 
waistcoat and pea-green trousers with which he was to grace in 
romantic fashion the premiére of Hernani, and incidentally to 
insult the sombre classicists. 

Hugo soon published the Préface de Cromwell in which he 
placed Shakespeare and the Bible on the same plane. This docu- 
ment is the Declaration of Independence of the new literature of 
freedom which Dumas styled “this literary America.” Hugo’s 
ideas on dramatic art were not new. Even his theory that the 
grotesque must be combined with the beautiful in the drama 
had been suggested by previous critics. His originality consisted 
in the eloquence with which he argued. His ideas are expressed 
in his usual trumpet-like fashion which makes his prose resemble 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 497 


a brass band playing fortissimo and often a little sharp. One 
cannot choose but hear. But brass bands never won a wart. 

The English actors did more to prepare for the victory of 
romantic tragedy than was accomplished by such propaganda. 
Their success continued. With few exceptions the journalistic 
critics were won over to praise. Smithson scored a veritable 
triumph. Kean, Kemble and Macready were lauded to the 
skies. French playwrights and actors were advised by the 
critics to study English dramatic art. In spite of reforms at- 
tempted first by Lekain and later by Talma, the actors still 
grouped themselves in a semi-circle and declaimed the Alex- 
andrine verse. English acting had a wider range and was more 
realistic. The French actors began to study the interpretation 
of madness and of death scenes; and thus they prepared un- 
consciously to act such scenes in the new drama that was to come. 

Macready’s production of Knowles’ Virginius in April, 1828, 
was of special importance. The same subject had been drama- 
tized in classical form by Campistron and by Laharpe. Here 
was an excellent opportunity to compare the classical and roman- 
tic systems. The Globe (April 16th) pointed out the superiority 
of romantic drama for historical subjects. “Only by adopting 
the Shakespearean system could one trace in all its beauty the 
character of Virginius.”’ Thus actors, playwrights and public 
were given an opportunity to study a different form of dramatic 
art on the stage, whereas previously they had only read about it 
or had studied it from the printed page of translations. 

“The time was propitious,’ said Dumas in speaking of this 
period. Talma, the great interpreter of classic rdles, had died 
in 1826. If one did not know what one wanted, one at least 
knew what one wanted no longer: classical tragedy. Dumas 
burned his tragedy Les Gracques. He thought that he burned a 
translation of Schiller’s Fiesko. He wanted to make his début 
with an original work, and Ancelot’s adaptation, Fiesque, had 
scored a success in 1824 when the sound of a cannon announcing 
the hour had echoed from afar the cannon in Voltaire’s Adélaide 
du Guesclin and prepared for the three cannon shots in Hernani, 


498 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


so jarring to the sensitive classical ears. Inspired by a small 


bas-relief of Christine causing the assassination of Monaldeschi, 
he wrote Christine, a dramatic trilogy in five acts, in verse, with 
a prologue and epilogue thrown in for good measure. The pro- 
logue, the first and second acts are at Stockholm. The third, 
fourth and fifth acts are at Fontainbleau; and the epilogue is 
at Rome. So much for the unities of time and place! Accepted 
at the Comédie, intrigues back-stage delayed its presentation. 
Henri III et Sa Cour was written in three months and presented 
on the eleventh of February, 1829. ‘From the third act to the end 
it was no longer a success, it was an increasing delirium,” said 
Dumas of the first night. Goethe’s Faust, Schiller’s Don Carlos 
and Fiesko, Scott’s Astrologer, Abbot and Quentin Durward fur- 
nished the dramatist with many details. | 

The first act opens in the study of-the astrologer, Ruggieri, 
in Paris. It is Sunday night, July 20, 1578. (Historical de- 
tails and local color have: come into their own.) Catherine de 
Medici comes to consult her magician. She is losing power over 
her son, Henri III. Guise is forming the League and aspires 
to the throne. Young Saint Mégrin is too much in the King’s 
favor. These men must destroy each other. Saint Mégrin loves 
the Duchess of Guise with silent, hopeless passion. Ruggieri 
must bring them together. Saint Mégrin is coming to have 
Ruggieri cast his horoscope. Catherine has drugged the Duchess 
and brought her, asleep, to an adjoining alcove which opens with 
a spring. Thus fortified with information and plans, Ruggieri 
bids Saint Mégrin gaze into a magic mirror. The spurious 
Mephistopheles opens the alcove and shows him the reflection 
of his sleeping “Marguerite.” A moment later, by pressing an- 
other spring, Ruggieri causes the couch, on which the Duchess 
lies, to roll into the room. The Duchess wakens, but the love 
scene is rudely interrupted by the sound of her husband’s voice. 
Ruggieri spirits her away through a secret door; but the Duchess, 
like Leonora in .Schiller’s Fiesko, has left on the divan her 
Shakespearean handkerchief—a real mouchoir this time. The 
Duke has seen Saint Mégrin. He finds the handkerchief and 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 499 


calls to one of his henchmen: ‘Find me the men who assassinated 
Dugast.” 

Act II. A great hall in the Louvre. The young men are amus- 
ing themselves and producing local color by fencing and playing 
with pea shooters, while they indulge in the latest gossip. Saint 
Mégrin challenges Guise to a duel by shooting a bonbon at him 
—in the presence of the King. (O tragic dignity, where art thou 
fled!) The Duke accepts; but mutters, aside: “You challenge 
me too late. Your fate is sealed.”’ Dumas feared the dangerous 
scene of the pea shooter, but it “passed without opposition.” 

Act III. The oratory of the Duchess. The faithful Arthur 
reads aloud to the Duchess Ronsard’s latest poem. Guise enters 
and dismisses the boy. He bids the Duchess write a letter at his 
dictation. The note tells someone how to enter the apartment 
of the Duchess. She refuses to write. The Duke forces her by 
seizing her arm with his mailed fist. The address is to Saint 
Mégrin. Arthur is summoned. The Duke conceals himself. 
Arthur is to be instructed to deliver the letter. ‘‘A single sign, 
a single word and the child is dead.” The Duchess gives the 
instructions. The Duke locks the door, which is to open only 
to Saint Mégrin. | 

Arthur delivers the note to Saint Mégrin in the fourth act. 
It is night. Ruggieri warns Saint Mégrin that a cloud will soon 
obscure his star. But the King gives him a talisman to wear dur- 
ing his duel on the morrow. A melodramatic storm breaks as 
Saint Mégrin goes to the fatal rendezvous. 

Act V. The Duchess awaits her lover in torture, praying that 
he may not come. He arrives. She tells him of the trap. But 
these moments “have been the sweetest of his life.” She loves 
him. ‘Society has no more bonds, the world has no more 
prejudices,” cries the young hero in true romantic frenzy. Noise 
without. He calmly draws his sword. The Duchess cries for 
help out of the window. A rope ladder is thrown in. The little 
page has discovered the plot. The Duke hammers at the door. 
Time is needed to fasten the ladder. The Duchess passes her 
arm through the iron ring of the door as a bar. Saint Mégrin 


500 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


puts his sword between his teeth and descends the ladder. The 
Duke breaks in the door. From the street comes the sound of 
clashing swords. The Duke rushes to the window. 


SAINT Paut (below) 
Here he is. 

DUKE OF GUISE 
Dead? 

SAINT PAUL 
No, covered with wounds, but breathing still. 

DUCHESS 
He breathes! He can be saved! Duke, in the name of 
Heaven. . . ; 

SAINT PAUL 
He must have some talisman against steel and fire... . 

DvuKE oF GUISE (throwing the handkerchief of the DucuHEss out of 
the window) 
Well, strangle him with this handkerchief. Death will be sweeter | 
to him; it bears the arms of the Duchess of Guise. 


And the curtain of the Comédie Francaise—the temple of 
classicism—begins to descend on high-class melodrama at ad- 
vanced prices. 

Except for the five acts and the fact that the unities happen 
to be preserved, this play contains almost everything, including 
picturesque oaths, which would shock the classicists. Whole 
scenes are given over to local color, as a result of a careful study 
of Scott. Humor is introduced. Familiar talk about contem- — 
porary events replaces the poetic tirade. The dialogue is direct, — j 
without metaphorical circumlocution of classical tragedy or of 
Schiller, and without the lyricism of later romantic drama. 
Dumas was too much a dramatist to hold up the action in order 
to sing operatic arias as did Hugo. The dialogue is dramatic 
prose. The classicists were spared the desecration of the Alex- 
andrine verse. Perhaps that fact delayed the battle until Hugo ~ 
offended them with overflow lines and displaced cesural pauses 
at the Comédie, a year later. te. 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 501 


In the last analysis, Henri IJ] is melodrama with an unhappy 
ending. It is not Shakespearean in construction. The play is 
well made. Had Dumas not seen Shakespeare’s plays on the 
stage, he might not have become a dramatist. Had he not read 
Schiller and Scott, he would not have introduced certain scenes. 
He did not choose a theme as a point of departure as did Schiller ; 
but, as in melodrama and in Shakespearean drama, the point of 
departure is a thrilling plot. Had he not seen melodrama, he 
could not have written Henri III in the form in which it is con- 
structed. 

On the thirtieth of May, 1829, Delavigne produced his Marino 
Faliero at the Porte Saint-Martin instead of at the Comédie 
Francaise. This play was an attempt at compromise. He re- 
fused to state to which of the two systems of literature this play 
belonged. It was inspired by Byron’s closet drama of the same 
title; but, since it was written for the stage, the differences be- 
tween the two plays are marked. Delavigne’s aim was to pro- 
duce a freer drama in harmonious verse and to consider as a 
sacred trust “the beautiful and flexible language” handed down 
by the great masters. So much for Dumas’ staccato prose, with 
the further implication that if prose melodrama could succeed 
at the Comédie, literary tragedy could succeed at the Porte Saint- 
Martin provided the play has some of the new tricks! Thus the 
heroine reads Dante; and a picture by Giotto of Paolo and 
Francesca recalls her own situation. The Doge plots while 
playing chess. The villain, disguised in a domino, shadows the 
heroine at a masked ball. The Doge wrapped in a cloak dis- 
closes himself to conspirators assembled in a public square at 
midnight. A gondola arrives from which two men step forth 
and fight a duel to the death. The plot rests upon a political 
conspiracy and a marital problem. The heroine is not guiltless 
and the dénouement is tragic; but the plot and the setting and 
much of the action remind one of Pixerécourt’s heroes and con- 
spiring villains in dominos, involved in a political problem and a 
concealed marriage, while fétes, gondolas, and masks furnish 
local color. 


502 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Marino Faliero scored a success as a play, but not as a com- 
promise form of drama. The war had gone too far to be settled 
_by a peace without victory. The classicists looked upon Dela- 
vigne as a deserter to the Boulevard theatre. The romanticists 
found his vocabulary too classical for their taste. Like most 
premature peacemakers he got slapped on both cheeks. 

Of quite a different temper was Alfred de Vigny who threw 
off with an effort his contemplative mood of philosophical poet 
in order to battle against the old order. He chose as a weapon 
Shakespeare’s Othello, which he translated freely, but sympa- 
thetically into Alexandrine verse. He omitted certain unimpor- 
tant scenes and shortened many others. He dropped the clown; 
and Bianca, the courtezan, did not appear on the stage, although 
he added her réle in later editions. He suppressed vulgar lines, 
on the ground that the genius of great poets does not reside in 
indecent words. The version played by the English actors con- 
tained similar cuts. But he retained the mouchoir with a mis- 
chievous smile. In order to preserve faithfully the effect of 
emotional dialogue combined with hurried action, he used over- 
flow verse. 

The play was produced on the twenty-fourth of October, 1829, 
at the Comédie. The cast was excellent, and the settings designed 
by Cicéri received high praise from both parties. As to the play 
itself, opinion was naturally divided. It was a pretty strong 
dose for the conservatives to swallow. They choked and sput- 
tered with rage in their journals; but Shakespeare, “the great 
Shakespeare,” as the actor said who announced the author, had 
won his place in the sun on the stage founded by Louis XIV— 
le rot soleil! 

“A simple question has to be answered,” wrote Vigny a few 
days later. ‘Will the French stage be open or not to a modern 
tragedy producing ;—in its conception a broad picture of life, 
instead of the cramped picture of the catastrophe of a plot ;— 
in its composition, characters, not rdles, peaceful scenes without 
dramatic action, mingled with comic and tragic scenes ;—in its 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 503 


execution, a style familiar, comic, tragic and sometimes epic?” 
(Lettre a Lord * * *.) 

This question, which he silently addressed to the first-night 
audience, was answered affirmatively. Vigny speaks of the old 
system “which had just died out.” Certainly in 1829 its flame 
was burning low in spite of the desperate puffs of the classicists. 
Soumet’s Féte de Néron, produced December 18, was one of the 
last flickers. Poppza died on the stage, revealing a large bloody 
wound; and a disgusted critic of the Quotidienne remarked: 
“Horror for horror, Othello’s pillow is better!” 

The only ammunition left the conservatives were hisses and 
fisticuffs which they saved for Hernani, produced on the twenty- 
fifth of February, 1830. For several weeks the approaching storm 
had loomed on the horizon. The air is charged with electricity 
as the negative and positive poles assemble at the Comédie. 
There is mutual jeering and recrimination. Then the curtain 
rises. 

The scene represents the apartment of Dona Sol in the ducal 
palace of her old uncle. It is night. A lamp burns on the table. 
Dona Josefa, the duenna, is alone. She draws the crimson cur- 
tains. A knock is heard at a little secret door. She listens. A 
second knock. 


DoNa JOSEFA 
Serait-ce déja lui? C’est bien a l’escalier 
Dérobé. 


(The audience is in an uproar. The first line contains an over- 
flow highly offensive to delicate classical ears. The battle is 
on.) She opens the door. A man enters. His face is muffled 
in his cloak, in melodramatic fashion. He drops his cloak. It 
is not Hernani, but Don Carlos, the King. He inquires if this 
is the place where Doha Sol, affianced to the old Duke, her 
uncle, meets her young lover, Hernani. It is. The duenna can 
choose between a purse for hiding the King in a closet, or a dag- 
ger. She takes the purse. (More uproar in the audience. A 
king hiding in a closet! A king who puns and jokes and uses 


504 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


commonplace words, in verses with a strange cesuras and over- 
flow! It is too much!) Doma Sol enters and a moment later, 
Hernani, the bandit, her lover, sweeps in out of the storm. 
(And all this is in the Comédie Francaise not in the Porte Saint- 
Martin: the virtuous heroine, her bandit lover, her comic servant, 
her uncle preparing an unwelcome marriage, a “villain,” who 
had slain the lover’s father, and upon whom the hero seeks to 
be avenged, listening in a closet.) 

Dofta Sol and Hernani intone their love duet. Hernani vows 
vengeance on the King who condemned his father to the scaffold. 
Dofia Sol swears to follow Hernani to his mountains and become 
an outlaw’s mate. The closet opens and the cloaked figure steps 
forth. The unknown man jokes and jeers at Hernani and 
calmly declares his love for Dofia Sol. Swords are drawn and 
crossed. Don Ruy Gomez, Dona Sol’s uncle, enters suddenly 
with servants bearing lights. As he is to marry his niece he 
feels that three men with her ‘are by two too many.” He calls 
for his “dagger of Toledo, axe and dirk,’ when the unknown 
figure reveals his face. It is the King. He asserts that he has 
come to discuss his succession to the Imperial crown; and he 
proceeds to do so at Hugoesque length. As he leaves, he hears 
Hernani and Dofa Sol agree to meet at midnight on the morrow. 
Don Ruy Gomez asks the King who is this lord. The King 
replies: “One of my followers.” All exit except Hernani, who 
delivers a fiery invective playing upon—not to say punning upon 
—the word “follower,” as the curtain falls amid wild cheers 
and booing. 

The second act discloses the square before the ducal palace. 
Night. Here and there a few windows are illuminated. The 
King and four of his nobles, wrapped in long cloaks, hats pulled 
down, arrive. The King watches for a light in the window be- 


fore which there is a Juliet balcony. It gleams forth. His 


Majesty orders his nobles to withdraw, and then he gives the 
signal agreed upon by Dofia Sol and Hernani. She descends ~ 
from the balcony only to find herself held by the King. He 
promises that she shall be his queen—his empress. Faithful to 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 505 


her outlaw she snatches the dagger from the King’s girdle. 
“Another step and I kill you—and myself.’ Hernani arrives 
like a thunderbolt. The duel begun last night can be finished. 
But no. Now they know each other. The King will not fight 
an outlaw, though the outlaw murder him. Hernani “plays a 
moment with the hilt of his sword, turns sharply towards the 
King and—snaps the blade on the pavement.” ‘We shall have 
fitter meetings—. Go!” He throws his cloak about the King’s 
shoulders so that his bandits in ambuscade will not recognize 
and slay His Majesty. Dofia Sol offers the sound advice to fly 
immediately, but Hugo is not going to miss the chance for a 
dramatic-lyric scene. Hernani finds that it is too late. (This 
Byronic Romeo is a bit of a Hamlet in his indecision.) They 
stay “to speak of love in stillness of the night when nature 
rests,’ until the tocsin sounds. Instead of seeking refuge with 
the woman whose life and honor he has endangered, he gallantly 
kisses her, but rather ungallantly leaves her fainting on the 
stone bench as he dashes off to protect his followers. However, 
this is romantic drama, not a book of etiquette. 

The curtain of the third act rises upon the gallery of family 
portraits of the Duke. Dona Sol is to become his bride within 
the hour. A pilgrim appears asking asylum. Dofa Sol enters in 
bridal attire. Pages bear in a silver casket of jewels. The 
pilgrim tears off his robe. He is Hernani. He bids the lackeys 
seize him. His head is worth a thousand crowns. The Duke, 
in honor bound to protect his guest, goes forth to close the 
palace gates. Hernani waxes sarcastic at the sight of the bridal 
jewels until Dofa Sol causes his wrath to melt by showing him 
a dagger at the bottom of the casket. At the end of their love 
duet, the Duke finds them clasped in each other’s arms. Ad- 
dressing the portraits of his honorable ancestors, the Duke asks 
for guidance. Trumpets announce the arrival of the King. The 
Duke goes to his own portrait, presses a spring and it opens, 
revealing a hiding place. Hernani conceals himself in it as the 
King enters. When His Majesty demands that Hernani be 
surrendered, the Duke once more points to his ancestors; and, 


506 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


having rehearsed their honor, he points to his own portrait. 
Will he open it? No. He will not be a traitor. The furious 
King departs, taking Dofia Sol with him as a hostage. Hernani 
comes forth. The Duke is ready to fight. Hernani offers him his 
life, until he learns that Dona Sol has been abducted by the 
King who loves her. He asks to be allowed to live until he 
saves her. He offers the Duke his horn. 


HERNANI 
Listen! take you this horn, and whatsoe’er 
May happen—what the place or what the hour— 
Whenever to thy mind it seems the time 
Has come for me to die, blow on this horn. 
And take no other care; all will be done. 
Don Ruy Gomez (offering his hand) 
Your hand. 
(They clasp hands. To the portraits ) 
And all of you are witnesses. 


The vaults of the tomb of Charlemagne, mysterious arches, 
steps and columns are the sombre shadowy setting of the fourth 
act. Unities of time and place have been broken to bits. Unity 
of action has been stretched almost to the breaking point. For 
the classicists, it has snapped. Don Carlos and his noblemen 
await the conclave, which is to elect the emperor. A cannon will 
boom thrice if Don Carlos is chosen. Left alone, he meditates 
at length in the famous monologue on several subjects, includ- 
ing clemency. (Meditative monologues in the style either of 


Figaro or Hamlet were considered essential to romantic drama.) 


He enters the tomb. The cloaked conspirators, among whom 
are the Duke and Hernani, file in softly in the light of a single 
torch. Hernani is chosen by lot to slay Don Carlos. A cannon 

booms—again—thrice. The tomb opens, Carlos appears. Every 
light is suddenly quenched. He strikes the bronze door with 
his key, soldiers seize the conspirators. Dofia Sol is brought 


in. The Emperor pardons Hernani and bestows Dofia Sol on 


him as his bride. 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 507 


Act V. The nuptials. A moonlit terrace of the palace of 
Aragon. Music. Masks and dominos. Another setting of the 
melodrama. Young lords laughing and chatting. Hernani and 
Dona Sol have been married. Happiness and plenty of local 
color; but a sinister figure—a black domino—crosses the ter- 
race. Flame seems to shine in his eyes. At last the guests re- 
tire. Dona Sol and Hernani are left alone in the quiet beauty 
of the perfumed night. In lyric poetry such as was never heard 
on the French stage, they pour forth their ecstasy in one of the 
most beautiful love duets ever spoken. The silence is too deep. 
Dofia Sol longs to “hear a voice of night . . . a bird that in the 
meadow sings . . . a nightingale in moss or shadow lost, or flute 
afar.” The sound of a horn is heard. Her prayer is answered, 
but—it is the sound of Hernani’s hunting horn—his death note 
sounded by Ruy Gomez, who appears shrouded in his black 
domino. The lovers beg for mercy, but Hernani is in honor 
bound. Dona Sol snatches the poison from her husband and 
drinks half of it. She gives him back the vial. He drains it; 
and the modern Romeo and Juliet die in each other’s arms. 
The curtain falls as romantic drama wins the day. It is melo- 
drama lifted to a high plane by a poet under the influence of 
Shakespeare, by a playwright under the influence of two cen- 
turies of French dramatic craftsmanship. 

The lyricism was due, in part, to Shakespeare’s direct in- 
fluence and also to the fact that the author was a lyric poet in 
a lyric age. The juxtaposition of the grotesque and the beau- 
tiful had been exemplified in Shakespearean drama. The theory 
had been formulated briefly by Walpole, Schlegel, Mme de 
Staél and others, and had been developed at length by Hugo. 
The balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet inspired Hugo. A part 
of the death scene is modelled on Garrick’s adaptation of Romeo 
and Juliet which was the version played by the English troupe, 
and witnessed by Hugo. In this scene Juliet awakens before 
Romeo dies; and they indulge in a tragic lyric duet before they 
die, as do Hernani and Dona Sol. 

Yet French romantic drama is not Shakespearean. These 


508 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


young playwrights justified their theories and practice by call- 
ing upon the authority of the great Elizabethan dramatist when- 
ever it was possible. They considered themselves his devoted 
disciples. They conjured by his name; but they wrote well- 
made plays. His influence was less immediate than: they be- 
lieved; it was actually less operative than Schiller’s. The melo- 
drama was the medium with which they worked and from which 
they derived much of their technique. 

The melodrama was in three acts, but the romanticists usually 
retained the five-act form. Where Pixerécourt was short of 
breath, Hugo was long-winded. The romantic playwright rarely 
permitted a change of scene within the act. This was another 
Shakespearean liberty which smacked too much of anarchy for 
the Frenchman. Unlike Shakespeare, unlike the classicists, but 
like the writers of melodrama and like Schiller, the romanticists 
made each act a unit ending with a climax and a striking final 
line. The scene is the unit in Shakespeare. The whole play 
is the unit in classic drama. Neither of these forms has a clearly 
marked act division where the curtain must fall. Alfred de 
Musset alone was under the direct inspiration of Shakespeare; 
but after the failure of his Nuit Vénitienne in 1830, he did not 
write his plays with a view to stage presentation. Although his 
charming lyric dramas were finally produced, the Shakespearean 
looseness of their construction kept them from influencing the 
development of French dramatic art until after romantic drama 
had run its course. 

The scenery of romantic tragedy reproduces the settings of 
the melodramas with the same care for detail. The scenery is 
an integral part of the play and not a mere background. Shake- 
speare’s plays and classical tragedy can be produced intelligently 
without any decoration; but to remove the sets from the stage 
would make melodrama and romantic drama _ unintelligible. 
Thus in Hugo’s Le Roi s’Amuse, the place de la Gréve and the 
interior of two rooms must be visible in order to follow the 
action of the fourth act. The settings aim to bring out the 
local color of the place and period; and Hugo made the setting 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 509 


an integral part of his dramatic art. He introduced effects 
of mass, light and shade, and color for psychological and emo- 
tional purposes. His gothic windows suffused with light fore- 
shadow Maeterlinckian settings. Crowds, monks, soldiers, mask- 
ers are employed for pictorial-dramatic effects. He transformed 
the divertissement of the melodrama into a carnival ballet in the 
opening of Lucréce Borgia. In the final act of Hernani he 
dramatizes light, color, sound, silence and lyric poetry. He calls 
upon our sensations as well as upon our intellect. Synthetic 
dramatic art is not far away. Richard Wagner was soon to 
revive the Aristotelian synthesis by adding the element of expres- 
sionistic music in perfect harmony with the dramatic situation. 

The point of departure in romantic drama is a plot which 
can be divided into five acts, each one furnishing at least one 
great coup de théatre. Nothing is too melodramatic in any 
sense of the word for these romantic playwrights. The plot 
may be highly complex, as in Hernani or Henri III, or much 
simpler, as in Ruy Blas or Marion Delorme. It must have 
thrills arising from remarkable situations. Thus the whole ma- 
chinery of disguises and concealed identities, as used in melo- 
drama, is brought into play. Forbid the use of masks and 
cloaks, and both forms of drama cease to exist. 

The plots leap forward by means of overheard conversations 
and actions beheld by concealed personages. The characters 
arrive on the scene “pat, like the catastrophe of the old com- 
edy.” If they came a few seconds earlier or later, the whole 
course of the action would be altered. If a greater thrill can 
be produced, they come down the chimney, as does Don César 
in Ruy Blas or through a window, as does Didier in Marion De- 
lorme. If, as in the latter play, one character must not recog- 
nize another, for the sake of the plot a lamp is overturned. 
The lame reason is given, aside, that a rival is looking at the 
heroine with bold eyes. In such circumstances the study of a 
theme or a character is difficult. The psychological element is 
often unheard amid the whirring of the machinery, no matter 
how smoothly the wheels revolve. Analysis of character cannot 


510 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


be made effectively in monologues and tirades. Character un- 
folds in action; and the action of romantic tragedy is a series 
of thrills. Hugo’s people are not always marionettes; but they 
become so at any moment for the sake of the plot. The range 
of characters is greater than in melodrama. The melodramatic 
formula of the virtuous woman persecuted by the “traitor” is 
not monotonously maintained. The humor is not confined to a 
single comic character. Yet, like the hero of the melodrama, 
Didier, Gennaro and Ruy Blas are children of mysterious par- 
entage. Gennaro, ignorant that he is the son of the evil Lu- 
cretia, is first cousin to Pixerécourt’s Victor who does not know 
that his father is the notorious bandit. Parental love for in- 
nocent offspring controls the actions of both “villains.” In Le 
Roi s’Amuse, the pander Triboulet is the father of the heroine, 
Blanche; and he is punished by bringing destruction unwittingly 
upon his own child, the only creature in the world whom he 
loves and respects. The rdle of the evil-doer, which appears in 
so many romantic tragedies, is handled much less crudely than 
in melodrama. The heroine is not always a paragon of virtue. 
Blanche actually loves the King and deceives her father in Le 
Roi s’Amuse. Marion Delorme is a courtezan who enlists our 
sympathy. By endowing their principals with both vices and 
virtues, the romanticists began to differentiate characters and 
create individuals, not mere réles cut out by pattern. Not since 
Figaro, had any characters appeared on the French stage with 
such distinct personalities as Triboulet, Marion Delorme, Ruy 
Blas. Had they been in less strange circumstances and gone 
through fewer astounding adventures, they would have been 
more human. | 

The classical dramatists often made their personages vague 
abstractions. The romanticists insisted upon the “characteris- 
tic.’ They exaggerated the characteristic to such an extent that 
it borders constantly on caricature. Their personages are in- 
dividuals; but they are very strange individuals in strange cir- 
cumstances. We know them; but we do not know anyone like 
them. 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 511 


The construction of romantic tragedy differs from that of 
melodrama in two respects. The point of attack is earlier in 
the newer form of drama. Thus the narrative exposition of the 
melodrama is generally replaced by exposition in action in ro- 
mantic tragedy. This is a distinct gain, for nothing is more 
inartistic in the theatre than mere narrative before suspense has 
been aroused. Had the romantic playwrights followed Shake- 
speare’s practice, they would have chosen a still earlier point 
of attack. 

The greatest difference between the two forms appears in the 
last act. The melodrama ended happily. Romanticists could 
not be so bourgeois as to believe in the reward for virtue. No 
means of escape from death was allowed in their scheme of 
art for hero or heroine. The final impression left by romantic 
drama is tragic; but it is not well to inquire as to the inex- 
orable logic of the dénouement either of melodrama or of ro- 
mantic drama. A tragic last act is only apparently inevitable 
when the determining element in the action is chance. 

The influence of the melodrama is clearly seen in Hugo’s 
Lucréce Borgia, which even retains the three-act division and 
the prose dialogue. The play opens at Venice before an illumi- 
nated palace. Maskers dance a ballet, after which the expo- 
sition is given, not in action, but, as in the melodrama, by 
narrative dialogue telling of the criminal Lucretia and of her 
mysterious child. Among the young men who listen is the Span- 
iard, Gubetta, a traitor who turns out to be the semi-comic, lesser 
villain of melodrama. Young Gennaro falls asleep on a bench. 
Lucretia finds him. He is her son. She kisses him and thus 
arouses the jealousy of the Duke d’Este, her second husband, 
who enters masked and unperceived, and exits vowing vengeance. 
Gennaro wakens. He is attracted to this unknown woman whom 
he neither knows as his mother nor as the hated Borgia. Gen- 
naro’s friends enter. They tear the mask from her face. 
Gennaro is horror-stricken to find she is Lucretia Borgia. 

Act II. The young men have arrived at Ferrara on an em- 
bassy. They are before the Borgia palace. Lucretia vows venge- 


512 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


ance upon Gennaro’s friends for having caused him to mani- 
fest hate for her—his unknown mother. She plans a poisoned 
banquet for them. Gennaro is not to be harmed; but the Duke 
d’Este has Gennaro seized and brought before him and Lucretia. 
He confesses that he erased the B from the word Borgia on 
the palace. Lucretia, who has demanded the death of the un- 
known culprit, is horror-stricken. Her husband forces her to 
pour out poison for Gennaro, whom he has pretended to pardon. 
Gennaro drinks it; but Lucretia gives him an antidote, and 
bids him fly from Ferrara. 

Act III. The banquet hall of a palace. Gennaro has de- — 
layed his departure—for reasons of plot—and has partaken of. 
the poisoned wine with his young friends. Gubetta, pretending 
to have drunk of the wine, begins a drinking song. Monks are 
heard chanting. The lights go down. The chant comes nearer. 
Large curtains open, disclosing an altar. Six monks enter. 
Lucretia appears. The curtains close. She announces that the 
banqueters are poisoned. The curtains disclose five coffins ready 
for them. Gennaro asks for the sixth. Lucretia had thought 
him, her son, safe on the road to Venice. She stabs Gubetta 
for not having saved him. Gennaro still has the antidote; but 
there is not enough of it for his friends. He refuses to take © 
it, and he seizes a knife from the table. She pleads, but 
in vain. He stabs her as his friends die. She cries: “I am your 
mother!” With a scream of despair he falls dead. Lucretia 
crawls to his body and dies as the monks take up their chant. 

Nothing more hair-raising than this play by Hugo and La 
Tour de Nesle by Dumas had ever been produced on the Boule- 
vards by Pixerécourt. It is not strange that the French in- 


tellectuals soon began to tire of such effects and to demand a — q 


new drama of “good sense.” The reaction commenced when the 
actress Rachel, a volcano covered with snow, successfully re- 
vived many of the great classic réles in 1838. Even Hugo’s 
finest drama, Ruy Blas, of the same year could not stem the tide. 
that was setting in against romanticism on the stage. In 1843 
the Burgraves failed dismally. Hugo’s first play, Cromwell, 


FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 513 


was too vast for the stage. His Burgraves is an epic poem in 
dialogue under which the delicate framework of drama cracked. 
Involved and lumbering in its plot, it can scarcely be followed 
by the spectator. The characters are, as Sainte Beuve remarked, 
“sigantic marionettes.” They stalk about the stage gor- 
geously but heavily in their concealed identities and disguises. 
They boom forth long speeches full of confusing details of un- 
interesting history. No one is the person he seems to be, and 
only the spectator who enjoys a Chinese puzzle really cares 
_who the characters are or is interested in what they are doing. 
In the Burgraves, Hugo is at his worst; and the greater the 
genius, the worse he is when he exaggerates his virtues into 
vices. Hugo was done as a dramatist; and romantic drama 
ended in 1843 with the failure of the Burgraves. Like its 
heroes, it had lived a short and riotous life. It was “born too 
late in a world too old.” 

A month after this Waterloo of romantic drama, the Restora- 
tion of classical tragedy took place with Ponsard’s Lucréce. 
In its period of exile this drama of the Old Régime had learned 
some liberalism. The unities of time and place are not observed 
in Lucréce; but interminable narrative passages, including an 
allegorical dream, were piously ground out by the author in a 
style imitated from Corneille and Racine. ‘Good sense,” which 
results in mediocrity, could help to discredit the excesses of 
romantic drama, but it could not revive classical tragedy for 
long. The age was becoming realistic. The word had not yet 
been used in regard to art, but Balzac was writing his Comédie 
Humaine. ‘The preface in which he explains his method ap- 
peared in 1842. Contemporary manners, not ancient or medie- 
val history, were being portrayed in the novel. It was only a 
matter of time before the drama, as usual, would follow in the 
footsteps of narrative fiction and study problems of everyday 
life, in everyday surroundings. 


CHAPTER XVII 
FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA. THE PROBLEM PLAY 


HE Mariage de Figaro had combined a discussion of a so- 
cial problem with an intricate plot handled with great 
dexterity. During the Revolution the theatre had been given 
over to propaganda. The characters were mere masks. ‘The 
plots were often inartistically sacrificed for the sake of satire 
in comedy, and in order to voice republican sentiments in serious 
plays. Drama, like all other arts, was at low ebb. But, while 
the war over tragedy was being waged, comedy began a peace- 
ful development which was to culminate in the work of Scribe 
and, through him, to exert a powerful influence on all European 
drama of the nineteenth century. 

Picard, an actor-dramatist, was chiefly responsible for the re- 
establishment of true comedy on the stage. His Médiocre et 
Rampant (1797) was an artistic success in comparison to the 
plays of the sans culottes of the revolutionary period, although 
it was no novelty in comparison to the comedies of the Old 
Régime. In his Entrée dans le Monde (1799), Picard con- 
sciously sacrificed plot to a discussion of manners. He pointed 
out in his preface that he introduced episodic scenes and a large 
number of characters in order to show a part -of the society 
of Paris in 1799, that he hurried events in an improbable man- 
ner, and that the dénouement does not spring either from the 
action or the characters. In 1801 he produced a study of the 
provincial manners entitled La Petite Ville. His point of de- 
parture was the theme of the unattractiveness of society in 
small towns. Realizing that there was no unified plot in the 
play, Picard called it an episodic comedy. He even deleted 
one of the acts without seriously harming what plot there was; 

514 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 515 


but the element of plot, though insignificant in these two plays, 
was to become increasingly important in his work. 

His Duhautcours (1801) was a step towards realistic comedy. 
Inspired by Turcaret and by Noland de Fatouville’s Ban- 
queroutier, Picard presents in this play a study of the world 
of high finance, which was to become the subject of countless 
plays in the new century. This comedy becomes a serious drama 
in the fourth act when Durville and his advisor, Duhautcours, 
try to effect a bankruptcy which will enrich them. They are 
finally foiled and exposed by Franval in a realistic scene which 
foreshadows many such episodes in modern drama in which, 
during a brilliant soirée, guests, creditors and lawyers assemble 
in the home of a captain of industry. The plot does not over- 
shadow the study of high finance in 1801; but the question 
as to whether the would-be bankrupt can succeed in his nefari- 
ous plans is important enough to satisfy anyone who insists that 
every play must have a story. A secondary love story between 
the nephew of Durville and a young girl whose father is being 
ruined by the financier is loosely connected with the main ac- 
tion. Picard was still inclined to be episodic instead of neatly 
dovetailing the component parts of his action as Beaumarchais 
had done and as he himself was to do in a few years. 

He said that his Marionettes (1806) was a play based on 
character and hence the plot was subordinate to the characters. 
However, his aim was to show that people are governed by 
events, not by will power or personal traits. In a word, we are 
all marionettes and when circumstance pulls the strings we dance 
accordingly. He developed this view of life still further in his 
Ricochets (1807). He says of the plot: ‘““My little groom obeys 
his mistress. The son of the minister obeys his, the mistress 
obeys her own caprice; and the caprice, by which he is domi- 
nated, dominates and decides by a series of ricochets, the fate 
of all the personages. Finally, in destroying all hopes by the 
loss of a little dog, in causing them to be reborn, in realizing 
them, in bringing about marriages and getting positions by 
the gift of a canary bird, I prove that small causes often pro- 


516 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


duced great results.” That such a chain of cause and effect 
acts upon people that are marionettes was Picard’s view of life. 
Scribe’s method of constructing plays was to be based on this 
theory. 

When Pascal remarked that if Cleopatra’s nose had been 
shorter, the history of the world would have been different, he 
implied that small causes bring forth great effects; but the 
statement also embodies the idea that chance plays an impor- 
tant role in the drama of life. Fate and Chance are as far 
apart as the two poles and quite as similar in effect. The con- 
cepts expressed in these two words are diametrically opposed to 
each other, and yet, are so constantly interchanged, that they 
seem to the average man to be interchangeable. Is it Fate or 
Chance which rules the destiny of an @dipus or a Romeo? The 
individual may answer the question according to the state of 
his digestion; but anyone who believes that small causes pro- 
duce great results, that kingdoms are lost for want of a horse- 


shoe nail, that the upsetting of a glass of water may bring 


political upheavals, will allow the element of chance free play 
in his philosophy of life. 

Many of Scribe’s contemporaries believed that the destruction 
of class distinction by the Revolution had made the comedy of 
manners impossible. Scribe went much further and insisted that 
the stage never had been and never could be the mirror of soci- 
ety. Perhaps he was wearied of the solemn reiteration of the 
opposite view by the Academicians. It was his fate to mirror 
the larger part of contemporary society better than they did 
and better than the nervous romanticists who believed so ec- 
statically in missions and purposes of art. Holding these con- 
ceptions of life and of drama and becoming the master-builder 
of the well-made play, Scribe’s influence on dramatic art in the 
nineteenth century was universally condemned by serious critics 
and dramatists. The critics were content to censure him. The 
dramatists criticized him consciously and imitated him uncon- 
sciously. 

“You go to the theatre, not for instruction or correction, but 


se OR aa > ea gee OE ee D) 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA S17 


for relaxation and amusement. Now what amuses you most 

is not truth, but fiction. To represent what is before your eyes 

every day is not the way to please you; but what does not 

come to you in your usual life, the extraordinary, the romantic, 

that is what charms you, that is what one is eager to offer you. 

. .. The theatre is then very rarely the expression of society; 
. it is very often the inverse expression.” 

Thus spoke Scribe to the Academicians in 1836. Not since 
Moliére had a dramatist had the temerity to insist that the 
principal aim of the theatre is amusement. He began his career 
by writing comédies-vaudevilles. The vaudeville aims solely to 
entertain. It is a play in one to three acts in which songs are 
introduced. The plot is often based upon some curious, actual 
Incident, and the quiproquo is constantly employed. A de- 
scendant of the farce, the vaudeville was often satirical. As 
Moliére developed the farce into high comedy in the seven- 
teenth century, so Scribe started with the vaudeville, and with 
the aid of the example of Picard, he gradually transformed the 
vaudeville into a comedy which actually deals with manners 
and society, but in which the plot is carefully stressed. Scribe’s 
ability to build intricate situations and to extract from them 
the maximum amounts of surprise and suspense, has caused 
him to be considered usually as a playwright who sacrifices all 
to dramaturgic dexterity. The charge is true; but in spite of 
this sacrifice, some of his plays contain social problems. 

His formula for constructing plays is simple. The variations 
of his method are many. As a rule, his point of departure is 
a plot. If he begins with a social problem, such as marriage, 
and money, or with the idea of showing how great results arise 
from small causes, or with a character, the plot assumes finally 
such importance that the problem, character or theme is over- 
shadowed. 

His point of attack is fairly close to his dénouement. Though 
his plots contain many incidents, he feels no need of the large 
framework of romantic drama. His Bertrand et Raton (1833), 
produced in the heyday of romanticism, is a compact historical 


518 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


comedy. When the curtain rises on any of his full length 
comedies, there is often much to be explained. Scribe is de- 
liberate in his first act. He would be boring in some of his 
openings were it not for his wit. If a social problem is in- 
volved in the plot, he states it lucidly and discusses it clearly. 
If events of the past are to influence the present, he explains 
them and their effect on his characters. He does not avoid 
long speeches, asides or monologues, and does not mystify the 
spectator by keeping secrets. 

By the end of the first act or in the first part of the second, 
all the important circumstances are clear. Then the fireworks 
begin. Letters miscarry. The quiproquo occurs at any mo- 
ment. He weaves together the many threads of his plot and 
dexterously unties them at the end. It is the incidents which 
develop, not his characters. 

An outstanding example of his dramatic juggling is his Bataille 
de Dames (1851). Henri de Flavigneul has been condemned 
to death for conspiracy and is hiding, disguised as a servant, in 
the home of the Countess d’Autreval. She is secretly in love 
with him. Her niece, Léonie, does not know who this valet is, 
but finds herself uncomfortably attracted by him. The jug- 
gling of the question: Will he be discovered? then begins. Henri 
is constantly on the point of revealing his identity by his gen- 


tlemanly manners and conduct. He confesses his identity to : 


Léonie because she felt insulted at his attitude toward her after 
he rescued her from a bolting horse. Henri is in love with 
Léonie, but he is in a very awkward position. The Countess 
loves him, and is saving him from death. 

Montrichard is searching for Henri in order to capture him. 
Henri meets him, and pretends to aid him in his search. 
Léonie, questioned by Montrichard, practically betrays Henri 
through agitated answers. The Countess saves Henri by having 
an admirer of hers, De Grignan, dress as a servant and pose as 
Henri. Montrichard actually gives Henri a pass and a horse 
to carry a message. Henri escapes but learns that De Grignan 
has been taken. He returns. Montrichard discovers he has 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 519 


captured the wrong man. He returns. Henri conceals himself 
behind the broad skirts of the two ladies. Montrichard an- 
nounces that Henri has been pardoned. Henri reveals himself. 
Montrichard immediately arrests him. His statement was a 
trick. He has won. The Countess is in consternation for a 
moment. Then she announces that Montrichard is joking; that 
his statement was true. Montrichard laughingly admits it. 
Henri is free. The Countess, however, is defeated. She must 
renounce Henri for the sake of Léonie; but she is partially con- 
soled by accepting De Grignan. 

Artificial as the plot is, it is deftly handled and enlivened by 
sparkling wit. The suspense, surprises and sudden appearances 
are mechanical; but the machinery runs so smoothly, so quietly, 
that one is not disturbed by it. Scribe sweeps gracefully to a 
climax while his contemporaries labored heavily to reach it. His 
theatrical effects may be meretricious, but they are never dull. 
Hugo piled up heavy complications and romantic drama cracked 
under them. Scribe wove complications into a piece of lace 
work—light and diaphanous. : 

The plausibility of the development of his situations has been 
a thorn in the flesh of his hostile critics. He was careful in 
his preparation. In Adrienne Lecouvreur his heroine dies 
through breathing a subtle poison. This event is not fore- 
shadowed but is fully prepared in the first act. Scribe’s char- 
acters always enter at the psychological moment; but their en- 
trances are never improbable. Letters bring the dénouements 
of the Mariage d’Argent and of Camaraderie ; but the spectator 
does not feel that the situation of the characters as the curtain 
falls is illogical. In Bertrand et Raton many suprising events 
take place, but he shows that those who actively conspire against 
a government, especially the bourgeois, are not the people who 
reap the benefits of a revolution. Much can be said for this 
idea. It is a sensible view; and common sense—meaning the 
point of view of the average man—dominates Scribe’s plays. 
His popularity with the majority of theatre-goers and his un- 
popularity with the feverish romanticists were due partially to 


520 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


his common sense. The accusation that he was not a profound 
thinker is true; but he cannot be accused justly of being il- 
logical. He had a sane outlook on life. He avoided senti- 
mentality. He sacrificed the romantic to the reasonable. Even 
his theory of the small cause leading to great results has a certain 
plausible logic in it as he presents it in his developing actions. 
His play Une Chaine is based upon the situation of a young 
musician who has succeeded in obtaining recognition through 
the efforts of a young married woman. They are lovers. He 
feels deep gratitude towards her; but when he falls in love with 
his cousin and wishes to marry her, his mistress becomes a 
chain. This idea is stated clearly three or four times during 
the play; but there is no study of the problem, The action 
develops through a series of events that is full of surprise, sus- 
pense, and Scribian tricks. The situation becomes complex to 
a high degree, but always remains clear. The play is more than 
well made; it is beautifully made. The interest lies in the plot, 
not in the problem. Yet the ending is logical and sensible 
although it is brought about by a trick. But the time was 
soon to come when Augier and the younger Dumas were to place 
much more emphasis on the problem and somewhat less on the 
plot. The well-made play, however, was to continue its vogue 
for many years. Scribe invented nothing. French playwrights 
for two centuries had shown great skill in construction. But 
Scribe used all the tricks of the trade all the time. Others used 
some of them some of the time. He excelled everyone in drama- 
turgic dexterity, and he taught the dramatists of the nine- 
teenth century their art of playmaking. His greatest virtue 
was his greatest fault: he was too skilful. But as Sarcey says, 
“One must know Scribe. One must study, but not imitate 
him.” | ‘ 
Augier and the younger Dumas owed much to Scribe; but, 
unlike him, they held that drama reflects contemporary soci- 
ety. Augier was content to treat problems impassively. Dumas 
sought to give the answer to the problem. He was militant, 
argumentative, presenting one side of the question with logic 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 521 


that seems, for the moment, irrefutable. Augier presented both 
sides of the problem with delicate balance. He concluded on 
the side of common sense like Scribe, like Moliére; but the con- 
clusion is unobtrusive. The final curtain of a play by the 
younger Dumas reminds one of the Q.E.D. of a geometrical 
problem. One has experienced a demonstration. The point has 
been hammered home. 

The elder Dumas was the most romantic of all romantic play- 
wrights. He was still producing great historical spectacles when 
the realistic problem play was evolving in the middle of the 
century. His Antony (1831) is an extravagant example of ro- 
manticism; yet it foreshadows the problem play as it was to 
be produced by his son. Vigny’s Chatterton (1835) contains 
a romantic poet as a hero, but it is a conscious attempt to in- 
troduce that form of drama in which plot is relegated to the 
background and the idea or thought is the important element 
in the synthesis. 

The curtain of Antony rises on the salon of Adéle d’Hervey. 
She receives a letter from Antony, who was in love with her 
before her marriage, but who has dropped out of her life for 
three years. He wishes to see her; but Adéle, the mother of 
a three-year-old child, fears to see him lest her former love for 
him revive. She arranges to go out in her carriage, leaving her 
sister Clara to interview Antony and dismiss him. Out of a 
window, Clara sees the horses take fright and a young man leap 
forward and save Adéle. It is Antony. He is badly injured. 
Adeéle enters and is given a portfolio found on Antony. It con- 
tains her picture, her only letter to him—and a dagger. Antony 
is carried in. Adeéle, feeling her love for him once more, says 
he may remain only if his life is in danger. He tears off the 
bandages and cries: ‘““Now I can stay—can’t I?” 

The explanation of the situation is given in the second act. 
Antony is still at Adéle’s home. The veils are withdrawn from 
the past. Antony left Adéle three years before, because a mar- 
riage was proposed between her and Colonel d’Hervey. Antony 
is a foundling without family, rank or occupation. He had 


522 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


asked for a space of two weeks in order to solve the secret of 
his birth. He was unsuccessful. Because of the prejudice of 
society against such men as he, Antony could not be the rival 
of Colonel d’Hervey. Adéle comes more and more under the 


spell of the pale, young romanticist as he talks of his life and - 


love. Adéle confesses her love for him; but she has decided to 
seek the protection of her husband stationed in Strasbourg. 
Antony leaves her, knowing nothing of her decision which is to 
be communicated to him in a cold letter. 

The third act is at an inn two leagues from Strasbourg. An- 
tony arrives. He engages the two vacant rooms. He makes 
it impossible for any traveller to obtain fresh horses; but he 
tells the hostess he may give up the extra room if a guest 
arrives. He sends his servant to Strasbourg to watch Colonel 
d’Hervey. At the slightest sign of the Colonel’s departure for 
Paris at any time, the servant is to inform Antony. In a pas- 
sionate monologue, punctuated by driving his dagger into the 
table, he informs us that he has passed Adéle on the way. He 
is going to demand an explanation of her departure. He exits. 
Adele arrives. The hostess gives her the extra room, since she 
cannot continue her journey. She hears a noise in the next 
room. She is beside herself with fear. Antony appears on the 
balcony, breaks the window and enters. Adéle screams. An- 
tony takes her in his arms and, putting a handkerchief over her 
mouth, draws her into the other room as the curtain falls. — 

The fourth act passes some time later at a ball given by the 
Vicomtesse de Lacy. Adéle has ventured into society with An- 
tony. Under the cloak of a discussion of literature, a Madame 
de Camps cites their case only too plainly. Left alone with 
Antony, Adéle is crushed by the impending scandal. Antony 
takes her in his arms, but the Vicomtesse enters too suddenly. 
Adéle rushes from the room. Antony’s servant informs him 
that Colonel d’Hervey is nearing Paris. 

The fifth act reveals a room in D’Hervey’s house. Adéle has 
reached home. Antony arrives with the crushing news of her 
husband’s arrival. They must fly. A pounding is heard at the 


“SS Ee 
nS A a es 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 523 


door. The Colonel is outside. Nothing remains but death. 
Antony stabs Adéle. The door is broken down. 


ANTONY (throwing the dagger at the CoLONEL’s feet) 
Yes. Dead. She resisted me and I killed her. 


To the modern realist such a series of coups de thédtre so 
neatly dovetailed seems too melodramatic to represent life. The 
characters are too exceptional. Their psychological reactions 
seem as superannuated as the medicine practised by the doctor 
who bleeds Antony for an injury which has already caused a 
loss of blood. The passions displayed by Antony made him seem 
false to certain contemporaries. The element of chance in the 
action seems overworked, with the timely and untimely ap- 
pearances of the personages and the remarkable succession of 
events of the past and present. 

But Dumas was entirely conscious of what he was trying to 
do in constructing this “drame d’exception,’ as he called it. 
The dialogue contains a running comment on his ideas. In 
the fourth act, Eugéne, a dramatist, is asked why he does not 
write a play on a subject of modern society instead of the 
Middle Ages. ‘That is what I repeat to him every minute,” 
says the Vicomtesse. “Do something of real life. Are we not 
much more interested in people of our own times, dressed like 
us, speaking the same language?” Beaumarchais and Diderot 
had asked the same question, years before, in regard to classical 
tragedy. It was pertinent to the new romantic historical drama. 
A baron replies for Eugéne: “It is easier to take subjects from 
chronicles than from the imagination. One finds in them plays 
almost entirely written.” Eugéne—probably speaking for 
Dumas—says that comedy of manners is very difficult because 
the Revolution levelled all differences of rank. He continues: 


The drama of passion remains, and here another difficulty pre- 
sents itself. History gives us facts, they belong to us by right of 
inheritance, they are incontestable, they belong to the poet. He 


524 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


revives the men of bygone times, clothes them in their costumes, 
agitates them with their passions which increase or diminish to the 
degree to which he desires to carry the dramatic. But if we tried, 
in the midst of our modern society, in our short-tailed, awkward 
coats, to lay bare the heart of man, one would not recognize it. 
The resemblance between the hero and the audience would be too 
great, the analogy too close. ‘The spectator who follows, in the 
actor, the development of the passion will want to stop it where 
it would have stopped in his own heart. If it surpasses his own 
power of feeling or expressing, he will not understand it any longer, 
he will say: ‘That is false; I do not feel thus; when the woman I 
love deceives me, I suffer without doubt ... yes... for a time 
. . . but I don’t stab her and die, and the proof is, here I am.” 
Then the cries of exaggeration and melodrama, covering the applause 
of these few men, who, more happily or unhappily organized than 
the others, feel that passions are the same from the fifteenth to the 
nineteenth century. 


This passage contains the indictment by the realists before 
they pronounced it upon romantic drama. Indeed, it is a com- 
mon indictment of all drama. It implies the eternal question: 
Just how melodramatic can an art be which seems to represent 
real life actually before us? The point of melodramatic satura- 
tion depends entirely upon the views of contemporary society. 

Dumas felt that in Antony he was writing something much 
more realistic than the romantic historical drama. Though some 
contemporaries called the hero false, he is the incarnation on 
the stage, not only of the romantic lovers in novels and poems 
of the time, but of the romanticists as they imagined themselves 
to be, as they were, in so far as was possible in an everyday world 
of reality. The success of the play would otherwise have been 
impossible. ! 

Antony, the foundling of mysterious parentage, has descended 
from a long line of children, beginning with Euripides’ Ion, who 
are lost for theatrical purposes in both tragedy and comedy. But 
Dumas’ treatment of this idea of the foundling was both new 
and dramatic. The fact that Antony is an orphan of unknown 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 528 


parents is the determining factor in his character and raises 
the problem of the attitude of society towards foundlings. The 
play, therefore, not only foreshadows realistic drama because it 
deals with contemporary characters, but also because it raises 
a social problem. This question is the basis of the plot and 
is directly discussed in the second act in a manner resembling 
that of the later problem play. The unfaithful wife had ap- 
peared on the German stage in Kotzebue’s Menschenhass und 
Reue in 1789; and his play had been given in French adapta- 
tions in 1792, 1799 and 1823. The grown-up, illegitimate child 
had been a source of sentimental emotion in European bourgeois 
drama from the time of Diderot’s Fils Naturel. In Antony, 
however, the unfaithful wife and the illegitimate child are tragic 
characters. Their lives give rise to problems, rather than to sen- 
timentality. The fallen woman on the stage can no longer 
always escape punishment by repentance and by living a life 
of charity and virtue. Thus Antony rightly belongs to the 
nineteenth century, while Menschenhass und Reue is clearly a 
product of the sentimental optimism of the eighteenth century. 

Having struck this modern note in Antony, Dumas turned 
once more to romantic melodrama. It was easier for his active 
brain to construct plots than to study carefully problems of his 
society. But Alfred de Vigny, the most profound thinker of 
all the French romanticists, was deeply impressed by this drama. 
He insisted that it contained a dominating thought, that it was 
a moral satire against the atheism, materialism and egoism of the 
age. He denied that the play was too “talky.” While the 
stage was ringing with the sonorous lyricism of Hugo and the 
spectators were being dazzled by theatrical surprises, Vigny re- 
volted against the complicated mechanism of romantic drama. 
He said in his preface to Chatterton that the time had come for 
the “Drama of Thought.” He proposed to show “the spiritual 
man stifled by a materialistic society.” He chose the simplest 
possible plot: “the story of a man who has written a letter in 
the morning and who awaits the reply until evening; it comes 
and it kills him.” Had there been a simpler plot, he would 


526 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


have chosen it, because in this play “the moral action is every- 
thing.” The action is in the heart of Chatterton, the symbolic 
figure of the Poet; in the hearts of Kitty Bell and the Quaker. 

In Chatterton, Vigny consciously produced a problem play be- 
fore the expression itself was used as a term of dramatic criti- 
cism. Many dramatists before him had written eloquent 
prefaces to show how their plays taught morality by stripping 
vice of its mask and rewarding virtue. Social problems had 
been mirrored more or less consciously. But no dramatist had 
so clearly stated his problem, and deliberately reduced the plot 
to a bare skeleton in order to spend all the time on the “moral 
action.” If dramatists had employed this method consciously, 
they had kept silent in regard to it. Diderot had advocated 
simplicity of plot and a study of family life, of profession and 
positions, such as The Father, instead of characters and char- 
acteristics such as The Flatterer. Sedaine, under the influence 
of Diderot, depicted a family in a charming manner and even 
introduced the problem of the duel in Le Philosophe sans le 
Savoir. But the bourgeois drama was not primarily a problem 
play as is Chatterton in which every character and every scene 
arise from the point of departure of ‘the spiritual man stifled 
by a materialistic society.” 

It is probable that Vigny was influenced by Sedaine rather 
than by Racine in re-introducing a simple plot into French 
drama. He admired Sedaine’s Philosophe sans le Savoir. It 


was a beautiful work to him; and the result of careful study 


of human nature and art. The rarity of such plays was evidence 
of their extreme difficulty. He prophesied that this form of 
drama would gain in power as it treated graver and greater 
problems. The characters were “happy creations which time 
cannot wither.” ‘The simplicity of the dialogue, the gracious 
nobility of the scenes following each other with such ease and 
naturalness appealed to him. These words of high praise were 
written in 1841; but Le Philosophe sans le Savoir was constantly 
played and Vigny’s knowledge and delight in this drama are 
certainly of earlier date. 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 527 


The material action of Chatterton observes the unities strictly. - 
It takes place in the house of John Bell, a gross materialist, in 
which Chatterton, the poet, has rented a room. He is starv- 
ing. His brain refuses to work. He has pledged his body as 
security for a loan. He has written the Lord Mayor asking 
for a position. He has fallen in love with Bell’s wife, Kitty; 
and she loves him, although both have locked their secret in 
their hearts. The Lord Mayor offers the poet a position as his 
valet. Chatterton drinks opium and dies. Kitty Bell’s death 
follows symbolically and actually from his kiss. 

The moral action is the clash of spirituality and material- 
ism. The spiritual world is represented by Chatterton, Kitty 
Bell, her children, and the Quaker. John Bell is the successful 
industrialist, surrounded by young lords who live riotously and 
see in Kitty only a woman to seduce. The Lord Mayor is the 
personification of a thankless national government which sees 
in a poet only a worthless citizen. 

Those who looked for a plot in the play saw only a justifica- 
tion of suicide; but fortunately the majority of the spectators 
caught the deeper meaning. The stupid keepers of their broth- 
er’s morals are always with us in the theatre; but this time their 
vapid cry of immorality was soon drowned in applause. The 
drame serieux had returned to the French stage in the form of 
a problem play even while Hugo and Dumas were thundering 
forth their gorgeous melodramas and Eugéne Scribe was playing 
his clever parlor tricks. 

Throughout the period of romanticism, Scribe had preserved 
the compact classical form of drama. Augier was even more 
classical. The point of attack in his plays is almost as close 
to the dénouement as it is in the comedies of Moliére or Reg- 
nard. The scene changes from one salon to another, but it does 
not wander from place to place as in romantic drama. The ele- 
ment of time is unimportant. One does not ask how many hours 
or days have elapsed between the acts. The epic and lyric 
elements of Hugo have disappeared. The striking settings, local 


528 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


color and the melodrama are things of the past so far as Augier 
is concerned. 

His plots are complex but they are never imbroglios giving 
rise to surprising events. Mistaken identity and the quiproquo 
have no place in problem plays. When Augier employs a coup 
de thédtre or any technical device, it is not for the purpose of 
dazzling the spectator with his brilliant dexterity, but in order 
to show a new development of his plot. He holds a middle 
ground between Scribe and the later realists who would banish 
all the devices of the well-made play. 

His situations are skilfully articulated. Just as he discusses 
both sides of the question, so he balances delicately both his char- 
acters and their fortunes. This equilibrium is beautifully ex- 
emplified in his Gendre de M. Poirier, which he wrote in col- 
laboration with Landeau. In this comedy the clash between the 
ideals of the newly enriched bourgeois and the old nobility is 
depicted. Poirier, the rich bourgeois, has married his daughter, 
Antoinette, to Gaston, a young marquis riddled with debts. 
On both sides it is a marriage of convenience. Poirier wishes to 
become a peer of France. Gaston desires to live a life of idle- 
ness.and luxury. They represent the extremists of their respec- 
tive classes. MMontmeyran personifies the more moderate wing 
of the nobility. He has accepted the fate of his class and be- 
come a soldier. Verdelet, Poirier’s friend and Antoinette’s god- 
father, is a bourgeois willing to remain a simple, solid citizen. 
Between the two parties stands Antoinette. Gaston, utterly ego- 
istic, is not unconscious of the fact that she is attractive and 
charming; but he considers her merely the source of his in- 
come. He is carrying on an intrigue with a Madame de Mont- 
jay, more through force of habit than because he loves her. To 
have a mistress is a part of his scheme of life. The duel which 
he is to fight on her account is also a part of the code of his 
world. In spite of his faults, which are presented as those of his 
class, Gaston is a likeable character. Poirier also has grave 
faults, but the right is often enough on his ee to make the 
audience sympathize with him at times. 


\ 


4 
{ 
. 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 520 


The first three acts of the play deal with questions arising 

from the intermingling of the two classes. The attitudes of the 
nobleman and of the bourgeois in regard to honor, money, mar- 
riage, ambition, and usefulness to society are brilliantly set 
forth. The virtues and vices of each class are depicted with in- 
cisive wit. Neither side is entirely condemned or exonerated. 
Finally, the concrete question as to whether Gaston and An- 
toinette can continue to live together boils out of the social 
ferment. Gaston has learned to love her because she has shown 
true nobility of character, but will he give up his ideal of honor 
in order to prove his love for her, by refusing to fight the duel? 
Thus even the sentimental interest is the result of the clash 
of social ideas. Scribe sacrificed the study of a problem to the 
development of his plot; but it is the problem not the develop- 
ment of the story, which dominates the construction of this 
play from start to finish. 
- Social questions had formed the basis of many a play in past 
ages, but in the middle of the nineteenth century the problem 
play came into its own. So long as the rule of the separation 
of tragedy and comedy was observed, the canonical happy end- 
ing of comedy was often a false note, destroying the harmony 
of the developing action. Now, for practically the first time 
in France, the dramatist could observe social conditions and 
treat them on the stage with freedom from tradition or rules. 
The question as to whether comic scenes can be mingled with 
tragic situations is far less important than the question as to 
whether a dramatist is allowed to take a situation involving cus- 
toms of contemporary society and develop it to its logical out- 
come, happy or bitter as the end may be. When dramatic art 
threw off the incubus of the rule of the separation of comedy 
and tragedy it scored a veritable triumph. 

Looking back over the centuries of dramatic art one is im- 
pressed by the dearth of plays which deal with problems of men 
and women in their everyday life. Without detracting one iota 
from the tragedies and comedies of the Greeks, the Elizabethans, 
the French and the Germans, one feels that the human, personal 


530 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


touch is too often lacking, that a whole section of joys and sor- 
rows of men and women has been left unrepresented. The 
dramatists depicted vice and virtue, true ideals and perverted 
ideals. But where was the picture of the normal man and 
woman laughing and weeping by turns in the comedy of life 
which ends with tragic tears? English, German and French 
domestic tragedy had attempted to supply such pictures of life; 
but they were often pictures and nothing more. The problem 
play, as the expression implies, deals with certain conditions in 
society which cause trouble. It seeks to analyze the opposition 
between social custom and the law, or between custom. and jus- 
tice. The dramatist does not consider the problem as merely 
ridiculous. He sees that there is right and wrong on both sides, 
although he concludes for or against one side of the question. 
This method is very different from the dramatic presentation of 
such vices as avarice, hypocrisy, affectation, etc., as ridiculous 
foibles of man. Moliére could employ any means to end his play 
Tartufe after he had shown the effects of hypocrisy. The dé- 
nouement was unimportant, provided vice had been held up to 
ridicule. The portrait of the hypocrite was complete. In the 
problem play, each step must be logical. The dénouement be- 
comes highly important for it contains the answer to the whole 
question. Thus the younger Dumas founded his whole scheme 
of dramaturgy on the basis of the problem. Social questions had 
been discussed in drama before his time; but he finally made 
the problem the point of departure. 

His first drama, La Dame aux Camélias (1852), is a play which 
tells a story. He did not write it in order to discuss the question 
of a courtezan regenerated through love. His formula of play- 
making had not yet been devised. Diane de Lys (1853) like- 
wise depends more upon its dramatic plot than upon the pres- 
entation of a problem of marital infidelity for its interest. 
However, the situations upon which these plays are based con- 
tain moral questions which only need to be discussed at length 
to turn the dramas into piéces d thése. The problem of marital 
infidelity is inherent in the plot of Antony; but the réle of the 


‘FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA _ oe 


husband exists for purposes of plot and dénouement alone. What 
he thinks, what are his rights, are questions of vital importance 
in a piece a thése ; but they are not raised by the elder Dumas. 
In the final analysis, Antony is the portrayal of enthralling pas- 
sion of the decade of the thirties, done in romantic style. In 
Diane de Lys the role of the husband is important. His situa- 
tion, his rights are carefully set forth. The plot is still of 
greater interest than the discussion of the question of infidelity ; 
but there is a marked development in the importance of the 
problem between Antony and Diane de Lys. 

La Dame aux Camélias and Diane de Lys opened a long series 
of realistic plays which remains unbroken to the present day. 
The erring woman and her relation to society had been presented 
in the theatre sporadically; but from 1852 on she holds the 
centre of the stage. After three-quarters of a century of such 
plays and at a time when motion pictures rehabilitate the courte- 
zan continuously every day from noon until midnight, it is 
difficult to imagine the younger Dumas’ first play as being con- 
sidered a rather shocking novelty when it was first produced. 
Its realism seems a bit sentimental. The pistol shot which 
brings down the curtain of Diane de Lys has become as banal 
as the arrival of the long-lost father or son with a fortune. 

Scribe’s Dix Ans dans la Vie d'une Femme (1832) was a 
realistic study of a woman who became a courtezan; but it was 
an isolated example without influence. These dramas of the 
younger Dumas ushered in a new development of dramatic art. 
When he wrote the Demi-Monde, the playwright turned still 
more to the study of a social problem. The plot is complicated ; 
but on leaving the theatre one is not thinking merely of the 
fact that Suzanne, a member of the demi-monde, has not been 
able to rise out of it by marrying Raymond. Much less is one 
concerned with the marriage of Olivier to Marcelle by which she 
will escape from her surroundings. It is the whole social prob- 
lem of the demi-monde, which is uppermost in one’s thoughts. 
The spectator feels that a case has been tried and settled before 
him. 


532 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Hugo had used the five acts to present a complicated story 
embellished with long speeches resembling operatic arias. Scribe 
had taken advantage of the full length play to dazzle the specta- 
tors with kaleidoscopic developments of his plot. Dumas belongs 
to the Scribian school in that he usually devised a plot full 
of surprising turns; but he left plenty of time to argue his point 
and to paint his portraits fully. Especially impressive in this 
respect is the Demi-Monde. He presents several different types 
of people belonging to this society. Each one is clearly dif- 
ferentiated from the other. Little by little we learn of their 
past, their present, their ambitions, their habits, their incomes, 
and their previous relations with each other. He even suc- 
ceeds in making a striking personality of Madame de Lornan 
who plays a part in the action, but who never appears on the 
stage. Likewise, a Monsieur de Latour does not enter but is 
sketched into the picture as a type of the men who frequent this 
society. 

The concrete question which forms the plot is: Can Suzanne, 
a woman with a past, rise out of the demi-monde by marrying 
Raymond? This causes the gradual disclosure, not only of her 
past, but that of all the other characters. The technique of de- 
veloping the action by withdrawing veils from the past was em- 
ployed by Dumas with great effectiveness. As each discovery 
takes place the action moves forward and the resultant phase 
of the moral problem is discussed. 

While the audience is supposed to draw inferences from the 
development of the plot and especially from the dénouement in 
regard to the problem and its answer, much of the discussion is 
direct. It is a debate or argument, thinly disguised, in which 
each character presents his case. The whole drama is plainly 
a conflict of opposing forces, and the action works up to the 
point in which the opposing wills clash in an obligatory scene. 
One character is pre-eminent in leading the discussion and in 
presenting the author’s views. In the Demi-Monde, Olivier de 
Jalin fills the rdéle of the raisonneur, as it was called. This role 
has been compared to that of the chorus or the confidant in 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 533 


classical tragedy; but at least these characters are not mere 
moralizers. They are active and effective. They fight for a 
moral principle. They give their views; but they dominate 
the action to such an extent, that they resemble dangerously 
an exhibitor of marionettes as he moves the strings. Only 
Dumas’ skill saves him from too apparently manipulating every- 
thing through the person of his ratsonneur. While the role of 
the confidant persists in many modern dramas as a friend of 
the family or a kindly old uncle, the vaisonneur is more than a 
mouthpiece for aphorisms. He may represent the crux of the 
whole action for the intellectuals in the audience, although he 
may not be the hero of the concrete story to the sentimentally 
inclined. Thouvenin, the ratsonneur in Denise, harangues André 
for four and one-half minutes in order to prove to him that he 
should marry Marthe who is the mother of an illegitimate child. 
So far as the problem is concerned, this lecture, as Dumas called 
it, is the culmination of the drama. 

Dumas believed that the Demi-Monde was more a portrayal 
of manners than a problem play; but in writing the Fils Naturel 
(1858) he reached the goal of the piéce a thése. He said in the 
preface (1868): “For the first time, it is true, I was trying to 
develop a social thesis and to render, through the theatre, more 
than the depiction of manners, of characters, of ridiculous foibles 
and of passions. I hoped that the spectator would carry away 
from this spectacle something to think about a little.” As 
Vigny’s wish had been to introduce a theatre of “thought,” so 
the younger Dumas dreamed of a “useful” and “legislative” 
theatre. “Through comedy, through tragedy, through drama, 
through buffoonery, in the form which fits us best, let us inaugu- 
rate the useful theatre, at the risk of hearing cry out the apostles 
of art for art’s sake—four words absolutely empty of meaning.” 

The theatre was not the end but the means. Eleven years 
after writing this preface he admitted, in his preface to 
_ L’Etrangére, that people would not look to the theatre for the 
solution of great problems; but he was none the less sincere in 
his belief that the theatre should attempt to solve problems. 


534 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Sarcey held that the theatre never had reformed anyone and 
never will. He saw no reason, therefore, for treating Dumas’ 
favorite theme: adultery. Sarcey was correct in his first con- 
tention. The theatre can only reform people indirectly, by 
showing life; but there is no reason why adultery or any other 
phase of society should not be represented on the stage, provided 
the portrayal is true. Innocence and ignorance were once prac- 
tically synonymous terms when applied to women—especially 
young women. Even Dumas advocated veiling the dialogue so 
that certain passages could be understood only by men. The 
jeune fille had an influence on dramatic art far greater than that 
of the “tired business man.” Happily both these innocents belong 
to the past. 

Dumas considered drama as an art by itself and not as a mere 
branch of literature. When he said that drama ought always 
to be written as if it were only to be read, he meant that a play, 
in order to live, must contain ideas. He pointed out that the 
reader often does not find the emotion in the printed play which 
he did in the representation, because a word, a look, a gesture, a 
silence, a purely atmospheric combination had held him under its 
charm. The language of great writers would only teach the 
dramatist words and a number of these would have to be ex- 
cluded because they lack “relief, vigor, almost the triviality neces- 
sary to put in action the true man on this false ground” (the 
stage). “The language of the theatre does not have to be gram- 
matically correct. It must be clear, full of color, incisive.” He 
cited the line by Racine: “Je taimais inconstant: qu’aurai-je 
fait fidéle !”—as an example of bad grammar but as an excellent 
line on the stage. The style of Scribe would be acceptable to 
Dumas if it contained a thought. 

Such ideas are a bold challenge to the literary critic. They 
had been expressed, in part, by Diderot a century before. In 
the nineteenth century dialogue grew less and less stylistic, but 
Dumas’ lines are by no means devoid of embellishment. In 
comparison with dialogue in our contemporary drama, his 
speeches are often rhetorical. In scenes of action he is clear 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 535 


and concise. The illuminating phrase came to him naturally. 
Not since Sedaine and Beaumarchais had a playwright expressed 
his ideas so brilliantly, so tersely when brevity is demanded in 
the particular scene. His greatest fault was the constant use of 
aphorisms. It is easier for an author to be brilliant than to be 
life-like in dialogue. His use of the aside and the monologue is 
regrettable because he could be subtle, and subtlety is extin- 
guished by the aside and the monologue used to explain facts 
obvious to the modern audience. 

Dumas fought valiantly to set drama free to tell the truth 
about life. Whether he succeeded or not in always telling the 
truth is not now a vital question. He set up an ideal of sincerity 
in drama. He was never false to his conscience. He insisted 
upon the necessity of being a master in the art. He said in the 
preface to Un Pére Prodigue: “A man without any value as a 
thinker, as a moralist, as a philosopher, as a writer, can be a 
man of the first order as a dramatic author. To be a master in 
this art, one must be clever in the business.”’ He admired Scribe’s 
ability as a technician, though he deplored his lack of depth and 
sincerity. If it were possible, he would think like A®schylus 
and write like Scribe. “The dramatic author who would know 
man like Balzac and the theatre like Scribe would be the greatest 
dramatic author that ever existed.” He learned from Scribe to 
know the theatre. Indeed, at the close of his career, Dumas’ 
plays were criticized for’ being too well made. Yet he never 
sacrificed what he felt was the logical demonstration of his 
thesis to a striking theatrical effect, although he devised coups 
de théatre in order to prove his point. “The real in the founda- 
tion, the possible in the fact, the ingenious in the means, that 
is what can be demanded of us.’’ But he never swerved from 
the belief that “the most indispensable quality is logic, which 
includes good sense and clearness.” 

“The truth (of a play),”’ he held, ‘‘can be absolute or relative 
according to the importance of the subject and the place that 
it occupies; the logic must be implacable between the starting 
point and the place of arrival, which it must never lose from view 


536 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


in the development of the idea or the fact.” There must be “the 
mathematical, inexorable and fatal progression which multiplies 
scene by scene, event by event, act by act up to the dénouement 
which ought to be the total and the proof.” 

Thus the dénouement of a play assumed great importance. 
The desire of an audience for a happy ending, and the rule that 
comedy must end happily and tragedy unhappily went by the 
board. The whole construction of the play depended upon the 
ending. In the preface to La Princesse Georges Dumas said: 
“You can make mistakes in the details of execution; you have 
no right to be mistaken in the logic and in the linking of the 
sentiments and facts, still less in their conclusion. One ought 
never, to modify a dénouement. One ought always to begin a 
play with the dénouement, that is, not begin the work until one 
has the scene, the movement and the word of the end.” One 
cannot help wondering how much Moliére would have changed 
the endings of his plays had he constructed them after this 
method. 


Naturally a great deal of controversy arose over the dénoue- 


ments of Dumas’ plays. Were they logical? Were they moral? 
Were they practical solutions of the problems raised? He was 
accused of representing special cases and deducing general con- 
clusions. 

He did create situations which were extraordinary. He compli- 
cated his plots so much that the later naturalists dismissed them 
as improbable. It is very improbable that an illegitimate child 
could be brought up in affluence by its mother who had been 
poor; that the child as a young man should wish to marry his 
father’s niece; that he would save France; that his father’s 
brother would offer him a title; that his father would wish to 
recognize him in order to gain the title, etc. But that all hap- 
pens in the Fils Naturel. Such a plot is not the result of observa- 
tion of life, but is devised to present a thesis. His demonstration 
of his hypothesis may be perfectly logical, but the hypothesis is 
so far-fetched that he has not represented the usual, but an 
unusual problem of the illegitimate child. Dumas was quite 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 537 


correct in pointing out in his preface the advance he made in 
treating this subject. “It was agreed formerly, in. the theatre, 
that an illegitimate child should groan, for five acts, at not having 
been recognized, and that at the end, after all kinds of trials, 
each more pathetic than the others, he would see his father 
repent and they would throw themselves in each other’s arms 
crying: ‘My father! My son!’ to the applause of an audience 
in tears.” This particular brand of sentimentality Dumas made 
ridiculous. 

Scribe was a master technician who merely wished to amuse 
an audience. Dumas was a master technician who felt he had 
something to prove and wished to make an audience think. He 
finally constructed plays in which the plot was of secondary 
importance. In the Question d’Argent (1857), he was so intent 
upon presenting the various phases of the influence of money on 
contemporary society that the plot almost disappeared. The 
first and second acts are discussions of the thesis: money means 
success. By the end of the third act, Eliza, the daughter of an 
honorable but poverty-stricken nobleman, is going to marry 
Giraud, a man of the people, who has amassed a fortune by 
methods which are within the law but are questionable from the 
strict moral point of view. The audience knows that such a 
marriage spells tragedy; and Eliza finally repudiates her en- 
gagement. The interest of the play does not lie primarily in 
the story, but in the discussion of the whole money question 
and in the idea that one should win a fortune by esteem, not win 
esteem through a fortune. 

As a rule, Dumas was careful to build up a gripping plot 
which unfolds with surprise and suspense. He insisted upon 
the “ingenious in the means.” The ingeniousness appears some- 
what overdone, now that the reaction against the coup de thédtre 
has put us on guard against the too cleverly devised scene. But 
if he forced events or characters it was in order to demonstrate 
his thesis. In L’Ami des Femmes he frankly used the legerdemain 
of Scribe throughout the play. De Ryons pulls the strings. He 
foretells what will happen. It seems as if what he prophesies 


538 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


is impossible. Then, presto, it comes to pass, but the thesis is 
proved. At the close of all his plays there is a surprising 
peripeteia. The unexpected happens. The last scenes form an 
exciting climax in which all the strings of the plot are gathered 
together and suddenly untied in an ingenious manner. 

In La Princesse Georges, the husband of the heroine is ap- 
parently going to meet his certain death; but the bullet strikes 
another lover of Sylvanie. Césarine, in La Femme de Claude, 
seems on the verge of successfully betraying her husband and 
making good her escape. She has seduced his young assistant. 
The plans of the invention are in her grasp. Her confederate 
is just outside the window, and she is about to throw them to 
him when the sound of her husband’s voice makes her stop 
involuntarily. Then the bullet strikes her. The climax of the 
Demi-Monde is produced when Olivier makes Suzanne—and the 
audience—believe he has killed Raymond. By this trick, he un- 
masks Suzanne, who declares her love for Olivier when she be- 
lieves that Raymond is dead. Even in the Question d’Argent, 
the least exciting of his plays, Giraud’s unexpected return, when 
everyone considers him an absconder, constitutes a surprising 
coup de théatre. 

Generally the last few minutes of Dumas’ plays contain the 
psychological and dramatic climax. The curtain descends almost 
instantly after the line and event which bring the solution of 
the problem. The tension is not relaxed gradually with explana- 
tions or prophecies of the future, as in Shakespearean and Greek 
' tragedy. The tension snaps. The knot is cut with one stroke. 
The spectator is left gasping with theatrical excitement. Dumas 
insisted that the dénouement should be unforeseen, but logical. 
This procedure was commonly followed by the realists. When 
Freytag was expounding his theory of the rise and fall of the 
dramatic action, the playwrights had ceased to represent the 
fall. | 

The objection was made, especially in regard to the pistol 
shot as a climax and dénouement, that social problems in real 
life were not solved by bullets. Alphonse Royer said in 1878: 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 539 


“This simple procedure which charges the arms manufacturer 
with the decision of questions that logic cannot solve has been 
the pons asinorum of the realistic school which has used and 
abused it as long as the public was willing to lend itself to this 
trickery against which it protests to-day.” From the point of 
view that realism is a transcript of real life, the objection is 
sound. Dumas’ attempt to answer such objections is found in 
the preface to L’Etrangere. 

“When we attack a law on the stage, we can only do it by 
means of the theatre and most often without even mentioning 
the law. The public must draw the conclusions and say: ‘Indeed, 
that is a case in which the law is wrong!’ Our means are a 
certain combination of events drawn from the possible, laughter 
and tears, passion and interest, with an unforeseen dénouement, 
personal initiative, the intervention of a deus ex machina, manda- 
tory of a Providence which does not always manifest itself so 
aptly in real life, and which, playing the rdle which the law 
should have undertaken, employs in the face of unsolvable situa- 
tions, the great argument of the old theatre, the argument with- 
out reply—death.” 

To such arguments the naturalists replied: “That is not life, 
hence not truth.” Dumas retorted: “That is logic, hence it is 
truth.” He insisted that there is a vast difference between truth 
in life and truth in the theatre. Zola denied the existence of any 
such difference. The reason for this distinction, according to 
Dumas, was that audiences were governed by mob psychology, 
were enormous masses and had to be attracted and held by 
gross means. ‘Truth had to make concessions; and he relied 
upon Goethe’s prologue to Faust to show that “the public has 
been and always will be a child, both ignorant and wishing to 
learn nothing, curious and convinced that there are many things 
very natural, very true, of which the theatre should never speak, 
impressionable and heedless, sensitive and teasing . . . deaf to 
reasoning and always open to an emotion.” 

Such arguments voiced by a sincere man who had spent his 
life trying to reason even in his theatrical manner are depressing, 


540 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


far more depressing than if they came from Goethe, who was 
more of a poet-philosopher than a dramatist. This theory of the 
audience was widely accepted. But though an audience has 
some characteristics of a mob and though there are audiences of 
varying degrees of intelligence, people are enough the same in 
a theatre as outside of it to make it unnecessary to misrepresent 
life on the stage. A dramatist must write for an audience. He 
does not have to write down to an audience. He can tell the 
truth in the theatre, if he knows how to tell the truth in the 
theatre. Sooner or later popular success will be his. Where is 
the dramatist of ability who was faithful to the truth who failed 
to be recognized by the crowd as a great artist? At least, he 
has left no trace of his plays in written form. 

When a subject fitted for dramatic representation and demon- 
stration had occurred to Dumas, he studied it in all its ramifica- 
tions. He knew the life history of all his characters. Thus in 
the preface to Monsieur Alphonse he gave a full biographical 
account of his principals up to the opening of the play. Such 
complete details cannot be presented in the play itself. The 
limit of time precludes that possibility. Yet such careful analysis 
of character and of the problem has its effect upon the drama. 
One may or may not agree with the author’s conception of the 
development of the action; but one realizes that Dumas knew 
why his people are what they are and do what they do. 

But they are what they are because of the problem; and they 
do what they do in order to prove his thesis. His characters 
impress one as his creations, not as people observed in life. In 
that period of naturalism when novel writers were striving to be 
impartial observers, Dumas sacrificed whatever power of objec- 
tive observation he possessed to his thesis. His characters tend 
to become generalizations and in La Femme de Claude, allegorical 
abstractions. He admitted that he spoke through them. As Zola 
said, his characters are “colorless, stiff as arguments, which dis- 
appear from the mind as soon as the book is closed or the curtain 
falls. . . . All that he touches instead of becoming animate grows 
heavy and turns towards dissertation. . . . Balzac wants to paint 


FRENCH REALISTIC DRAMA 541 


and M. Dumas wants to prove.” He was like a lawyer in court. 
He convinced his auditors by his arguments. But just as a 
lawyer may win a case by a clever array of facts which are 
not the real truth, so a dramatist writing a problem play is in 
danger of convincing an audience in a theatre only to have them 
question his conclusion on calmer consideration. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
NATURALISTIC DRAMA 


1 ie 1859 Sarcey saw a revival of Balzac’s Mardtre originally 
produced in 1848. He hailed the play as a first attempt at 
a new kind of drama. “It is not a masterpiece; far from it; it 
is much better than that: it is a revolution. Hats off, please. 
Realism is taking possession of the theatre.’ Zola in later years 
gave Balzac full credit for the realistic elements in the play and 
for defying contemporary conventions of playmaking in Mercadet 
(1851). 

La Marédtre is a clumsy, yet powerful piece of work. The plot 
is somewhat romantic with its stolen letters, deaths by poison, 
and the appearance of Pauline after she seems to have died. 
The dialogue is inept, labored and full of asides which explain 
badly the real sentiments and purposes of the characters. 

The play presents a woman who has married an old Na- 
poleonic general in order to inherit his money and then to marry 
her lover, Ferdinand, who is the son of one of the betrayers of 
Napoleon. Ferdinand falls in love with Pauline, the step- 
daughter of his former mistress. The two women fight for Ferdi- 
nand with drugs, poison, stolen letters and threats of blackmail. 
Pauline, the daughter, finally commits suicide by swallowing 
arsenic known to be in her step-mother’s possession. Gertrude 
is accused of murder; but Pauline, apparently dead, rouses her- 
self long enough to exonerate her. The old general is on the 
point of insanity when the curtain falls. This overwrought situa- 
tion belongs rather to romantic drama with a setting and cos- 
tumes of the Renaissance; but the setting of the play was mod- 
ern, there was no sympathetic character, no raisonneur; and 
Balzac drew his people objectively, and with powerful crude- 

542 


NATURALISTIC DRAMA 543 


ness. Hence the play seemed realistic in the middle years of 
the nineteenth century. 

Balzac’s plays were not a revolution but only a revolt. His 
attempts to make the theatre present real life were cut short by 
his death. His name, however, was invoked by the later natural- 
ists and his plays were cited as early examples of the new form 
of drama. This was good advertising for their cause, for Balzac 
was a name to conjure by. Yet one only has to compare La 
Mardtre with Turgeniev’s A Month in the Country (1855), 
founded on a similar situation, to realize what exaggerated the- 
atrical people Balzac created. Gertrude is a melodramatic 
villainess. The others are monomaniacs and therefore as abstract 
as characters in classical comedy. La Mardtre is dated. A 
Month in the Country is still modern. 

The old rules were dead. No one discussed the unities, the 
number of acts, the separation of tragedy or comedy. But a 
new set had taken their place: the rules of the well-made play 
with its obligatory scene, the rules of the problem play. Zola 
tells how as a young man he learned that complicated code of 
convention which critics called ‘the theatre”: how characters 
should enter and exit; the symmetrical division of scenes; the 
necessity of sympathetic and moral roéles; the art of juggling 
truth by a gesture or a tirade. It seemed that when one wanted 
to write a play one had to forget life and manceuvre characters 
according to particular tactics of which one learned the rules. 

“We must clear the ground,” he wrote in his preface to Thérése 
Raquin (1873). “The well-known recipes for tying and un- 
tying a plot have served their time; now we must have a simple, 
broad picture of men and things, a drama such as Moliére might 
have written. Outside of certain scenic necessities, what is called 
to-day the science of the theatre is only a heap of clever tricks, 
a kind of narrow tradition which cramps the stage, a code of 
language agreed upon and situations worked out in advance 
which any original mind will strongly refuse to employ.” 

He revolted against the whole procedure. In the theatre, he 
said, characters must enter, talk and exit. “That is all; the 


544 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


author remains after that the absolute master of his work.” 
“What is the use of a thesis,” he asks, “when life is sufficient ?” 
Why should the playwright descend to play the réle of a lawyer? 
“Problem plays argue instead of living.” Authors can make them 


mean what they wish. They are a plea, not the truth. They 


are as fragile as a house of cards. 

He insisted that playwrights should observe life and transport 
it to the stage instead of building clever but improbable plots 
and introducing striking coups de théatre. Without advocating 
a revival of classical drama, he pointed to the simplicity of the 
plot and the absence of tricks in the plays of Corneille and of 
Moliére. “I believe that one should go back to tragedy, not, 
Just Heaven, to borrow any more its rhetoric, its system of 
confidants, of declamation and interminable recitals; but to re- 
turn to the simplicity of action and to the sole psychological and 
physiological study of characters. The tragic form thus under- 
stood is excellent: an event unfolding in its reality and arousing 
in its characters passions and sentiments of which the exact 
analysis would be the sole interest of the play!” 

Theatrical situations must no longer dominate and reduce 
characters to manikins. The simpler the peripeteia the stronger 
it is. The dénouement especially should not depend upon a 
string to be pulled. Zola admired the ending of Augier’s Lionnes 
Pauvres because Pommeau, having learned of his wife’s infidelity, 
left the stage quietly but tragically to go forth a broken-hearted 
old man. The ingenious, surprising dénouement of the usual play 
by Dumas or Sardou seemed false to him. He accused Sardou 
of replacing peripeteias of passions by peripeteias of bits of 
paper. 

Zola objected strenuously to sleight-of-hand tricks by which 
authors softened their situations or got out of difficulties because 
they did away with true passions and profound analysis of life 
at the same time. After seeing a well-made play one often 
wonders what would usually happen in real life in circumstances 
which have developed so miraculously on the stage. Zola was 
not tilting at windmills. Sleight-of-hand was a part of the 


NATURALISTIC DRAMA 545 


playwright’s equipment. The theatre was not supposed to have 
the liberty of the novel. Certain pictures had to be softened. 
Zola held that if such was the case it was better not to try to 
put them on the stage than to misrepresent them. 

In dramatizing his novel Thérése Raquin, Zola tried to make 
the play a study of human life. The action did not consist of 
a manufactured plot, but was to be found in the inner struggle 
of the characters. There was to be no logic of facts, but a logic 
of sensations and sentiments. He said in the preface: “The 
dénouement was the mathematical result of the proposed prob- 
lem. I followed the novel step by step; I laid the play in the 
same room, dark and damp, in order not to lose relief or the 
sense of impending doom; I chose supernumerary fools, who were 
unnecessary from the point of view of strict technique in order 
to place side by side with the fearful agony of my protagonists 
the drab life of every day; I tried constantly to make my setting 
in perfect accord with the occupations of my characters, in order 
that they might not play but live. I counted, I confess, and 
with good reason, on the intrinsic power of the drama to make 
up in the minds of the audience for the absence of intrigue and 
the usual details.” 

French drama had been depicting the “monde” and the “demi- 
monde.” Here was a representation of the life of the lower 
middle-class shopkeepers. It was a tragedy much more brutal 
than any except those that the German dramatists had produced 
during the eighteenth century when bourgeois tragedy enjoyed 
its fleeting vogue on the European stage. 

The first act develops the environment of the drab protagonists. 
Thérése has married her sickly cousin Camille. They live with 
his mother. About the only distraction in the household is a 
game of dominoes once a week with some equally uninteresting 
neighbors. However, life has suddenly become tense for Thérése. 
She has become the mistress of Laurent, a boyhood friend of 
Camille. They dream of being free to marry. A year later, the 
second act shows Thérése a widow. She and Laurent pur- 


546 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


posely upset a boat in which Camille and they were rowing. 
The husband was drowned. Laurent has taken his place in the 
household. The third act takes place on the wedding night of 
Laurent and Thérése. The awful memory of their deed haunts 
them. In their hysterical outburst, the mother learns the truth. 
She is paralyzed in limbs and tongue by the shock. In the last 
act, the mutual revulsion of the guilty pair for each other de- 
velops. The old woman sits motionless and mute. She gains 
temporary use of a hand and begins to trace words accusing 
them. But her hand stops. Thérése and Laurent now loathe 
each other to the point of each wishing to murder the other. 
Finally Mother Raquin speaks. She will not denounce them. 
Her vengeance will be to watch their mutual loathing. They 
commit suicide. 

The plot is not complicated, but it is certainly astounding. 
Zola complained that the play would not have failed had he 
dished up the story with romantic trappings. However that may 
be, the situation is too remarkable. Zola invoked Moliére as 
a model. What would Moliére have thought of a picture of 
life which resembles Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus! No 


amount of bourgeois milieu can save such a plot from being 


melodrama of the sixteenth century. 

Zola did succeed, however, in producing a cast of characters 
in which there is no raisonneur or sympathetic role. His pro- 
tagonists have no glamour of morality or of sentimental, mag- 
nificent villainy about them. There is no character who adorns 
the dialogue with aphorisms or discusses any problem. The 
public, accustomed to the glittering characters of Dumas and 
Sardou and to the unusual sympathetic young lovers, was shocked 
by what Zola called these “lower middle-class shopkeepers that 
presume to participate in a drama in their own house, with their 
oil-cloth table cover.” The great distinction between bourgeois 
tragedy of the eighteenth century and that of the nineteenth 
century lies in the fact that the earlier form was thickly coated 
with sentimentality and the special brand of virtue of the time. 
The naturalists did not seek to stimulate the tear ducts of “honest 


is le 


NATURALISTIC DRAMA 547 


people.” Though the bourgeois milieu was similar, the two forms 
of drama were vastly different in effect. 

Naturalism was to enter the theatre unobtrusively but more 
effectively in plays of entirely opposite tone, such as Erckmann- 
Chatrian’s Ami Fritz (1876). This play presents a rustic pic- 
ture of Alsace in simple idyllic form. The plot is devoid of 
complications and coups de thédtre. It contains no problem, no 
thesis. Fritz is a generous easy-going but well-to-do squire. He 
seems to be a confirmed bachelor, happy with his friends, who 
enjoy with him plentiful dinners washed down with deep pota- 
tions. David Sichel, an old rabbi, believes that Fritz should 
marry. With a wife and children, life will have a deeper sig- 
nificance for him. During the bounteous meal in the first act, 
little Suzel arrives. She is the pretty little daughter of one of 
Fritz’s farmers. He falls in love with the child without knowing 
exactly what has happened. 

In order to escape from the kindly designs of Rabbi Sichel 
he goes to his farm which is cared for by Suzel’s father. The 
second act represents the famous cherry tree from which Suzel 
tosses down cherries to Fritz who is succumbing more and more 
to this mysterious feeling. There is a well near by. Here the 
old rabbi comes. He wishes to find out whether Suzel’s heart 
has answered Fritz’s unconscious love. Sichel asks for a drink. 
Suzel fills the jug; and, in response to his question as to whether 
she knows the story of Rebecca at the well, she repeats the text 
of the Bible. 

In the third act, Fritz has returned home, having run away 
in fear from this ever-growing love. The act is almost without 
incident. Of course Suzel and Sichel come; and finally Fritz 
can bear it no longer. He fears he may hurt the feelings of 
his old housekeeper, who has watched over his comfort since he 
was a child, if he marries. He confides in her, and she draws a 
rosy picture of married life. When Suzel enters, he tells her 
simply and directly of his love for her and she slips into his 
arms. | 

Accustomed as we are to consider naturalism as a drab and 


548 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


brutal representation of the seamy side of life, it is difficult to 


discover at first glance any relationship between this rustic idyl 
and the kind of drama that Zola wanted to see on the stage. 
L’Ami Fritz, however, became a small storm centre. Many de- 
clared it to be boresome and gross. They objected to the con- 
stant references to food and drink, sauerkraut and beer. They 
criticized sharply the lack of action. They were not interested 
in the picture of Alsatian life. But in this controversy, Sarcey 
and Zola, often bitter opponents in their theories of dramatic 
art, found themselves in accord. To them it was a true represen- 
tation of life. The realistic scenery, especially the cherry tree 
and the well, with real water, the detailed representation of the 
dining-room, contributed greatly to the ultimate success of the 
play. The settings became famous. Sarcey deplored realism 
in scenery for the sake of realism; but in this case he insisted 
that the scenery was an integral part of the action. Zola was 
ecstatic over the faithful representation of the milieu, the ob- 
servation of life and the simplicity of the action. They differed, 
however, on one important point. Zola cited the play as a modest 
example of what drama should aim to be. Sarcey warned against 
trying to imitate it. For him L’Ami Fritz was a happy exception 
—but an exception, nevertheless, because of its simple plot. 
The naturalists, under the spell of Balzac and Flaubert, in- 
sisted upon exactness in stage setting to the most minute detail. 
The physical stage was the environment without which their 
characters would remain largely incomprehensible. “An exact 
decoration,” said Zola, “a salon, for instance, with its furniture, 
its jardiniéres, its ornaments establishes instantly the situation, 
the society where one is, tells the habits of the characters.” He 
believed that the naturalistic evolution had begun in the theatre 
necessarily on the material side, by exact reproduction of environ- 
ments. The machinists had done their part; but the play- 
wrights were still groping. “Sardou,” he said, “wanted real cups 
of the Directoire period in Les Merveilleuses ; Erckmann-Cha- 
trian demanded in L’Ami Fritz a spring which gave real water, 
Gondinet in Le Club demanded all the real accessories of a club. 


ee eee 


NATURALISTIC DRAMA 549 


One can smile, shrug his shoulders, say that this does not make 
the works better. But, behind all these whims of careful authors, 
there is, more or less confusedly, the great thought of a 
methodical and analytical art marching along with science” (Le 
Naturalisme au Thédtre). 

In their desire to transfer real life to the stage the naturalists 
changed the manner of mounting plays. They revived uncon- 
sciously the theories of Diderot. Everything heard and seen on 
the stage must be an exact reproduction of what would be heard 
and seen if the action were actually taking place. In Diderot’s 
discussion of scenery the existence of the “fourth wall” is not 
mentioned, but is implied. So far as can be deduced from his 
arguments, Diderot would have placed this imaginary wall be- 
hind the last person in the theatre. The spectator was invisible, 
but was within the room. The naturalists, however, placed the 
fourth wall in the proscenium arch. Chairs were placed with 
their backs against the footlights. Even fireplaces were repre- 
sented by andirons or grates with a ruddy light streaming from 
them. Actors constantly stood and sat with their backs to the 
audience. Their diction was purposely slovenly, because real 
people do not enunciate carefully. 

The result was most unfortunate. The theatre tended to be- 
come a peep-show in which one saw imperfectly and understood 
less. Instead of feeling the effect of reality, one was baffled. 
One was conscious of actors who delivered their lines badly or 
too rapidly. The whole picture was wrong, indeed was unlifelike 
because no human being is endowed with X-ray vision enabling 
him to see through a wall. Thus reality was utterly disregarded 
by these realists. The spectator was a rank outsider who was 
placed so he could see and hear only with great difficulty. Seats 
on the side were often better than seats directly in front of the 
stage. 

Still another attempt to produce reality was made by setting 
the walls of a room on the bias and with unexpected angles. This 
was successful if the room was supposed to be a part of an attic 
or in some rambling house. But usually rooms are square or 


550 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


oblong. One does not think of them as if he were seated in one 
corner looking at another. Thus this method of setting interiors 
always produces the impression that the room has a queer shape, 
whether or not that is the effect desired. So these settings pro- 
duced an impression of cubism in which dramas of ordinary com- 
monplace life were strangely incongruous. 

The properties and furnishing were as exact as possible. If 
the scene was a butcher’s shop, as in the Bouchers, real quarters 
of beef proved to the audience that they were in a meat market. 
Who could deny it? When Antoine produced Old Heidelberg he 
bought the interior of a students’ room in Heidelberg and trans- 


ferred it to the stage. The stage was so overloaded and such a ~ 


restless impression was made that one had to make an effort to 
forget the reality of the scene in order to grasp the truth of the 
play. Real trees were actually set up on stages. In the optics 
of the theatre they were pitifully inadequate to represent them- 
selves. Drama cannot compete with nature by employing na- 
ture’s own methods. In such procedures, the naturalists were 
like naive little girls who pretend to be grandmother by dressing 
in grandmother’s hat and shawl. 

Since the milieu was a determining factor of character in the 
naturalistic theory of art, it had to be carefully represented. 
There is no valid objection to a photographic reproduction of 
environment on the stage, provided it expresses the inner spirit 
of the play as well as the outward form of the place. Scenery 
had been a decorative adjunct to the physical action. The 
naturalists were correct in their theory that it should be a part 
of the spiritual action; but their methods and results were not 
successful. ? 

Throughout the nineteenth century, persons on the stage talked 
more and more like ordinary people; but it was still necessary 
to differentiate the many types of human beings. The differentia- 
tion in language had lagged behind the differentiation in costume 
and make-up. On the stage people of all classes had used sub- 
stantially the same vocabulary. Under the impulse of naturalism 
the incongruity of conventionalized dialogue disappeared. Free 


— a a 


NATURALISTIC DRAMA Sst 


speech came with the Free Theatre. Greater variety of effect 
and contrast was introduced. Manner of speech is an ex- 
ternality; but a person in real life and on the stage reveals 
much of his character as soon as he speaks. When kept within 
artistic limits, naturalistic dialogue—meaning language befitting 
the character and situation—is an asset to drama. It is one of 
the means by which these playwrights were able to present 
studies of each individual. Drama had ceased to represent the 
abstract types of classicism. The romanticists had created 
strange individuals. Under the influence of the problem of the 
play, many of Dumas’ characters became abstractions. The 
naturalists aimed to differentiate ordinary citizens. 

Aphorisms were frowned upon. Brilliancy gave way to the 
commonplace. Hugo had democratized the noble vocabulary and 
style of classical drama. The naturalists believed that the dia- 
logue of drama was still too rhetorical and prudish. When Zola 
employed a few words of slang in his Bouton de Rose, the audi- 
ence was scandalized. The playwrights were undaunted. As 
they depicted the seamy side of life, so they used defiantly the 
crude or obscene vocabulary of the milieu, each vying with the 
other to see how far he could go. 

Any kind of language, didactic, poetical, brilliant or crude is 
inartistic, if it causes the spectator to think of the author or the 
actor instead of the character. Dumas intrudes in his didac- 
ticism; Hugo in his poetry; Wilde and Shaw in their brilliancy. 
In naturalistic drama, when vulgar expressions are used, the 
spectator is very likely to get merely the impression that the 
actor has spoken an indecent line. Whether one approves or 
not, the spell of the drama has been broken for the moment. 

The use of crude language and the depiction of sordid scenes 
were not the exception but the rule in naturalistic drama. But 
the idea of fitting the dialogue to the characters and the milieu 
was legitimate. The naturalists left nothing to the imagination 
in setting, costumes and dialogue. On the other hand, they con- 
stantly called upon the imagination to fill in the gaps between 
their pictures. They plastered on the milieu and scarcely 


‘ 


552 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


sketched the connection between the events of the action. Prepa- 
ration was studiously neglected. Their formula was to observe 
a part of life and to present the results of their observations in 
a series of scenes. Too often, they represented only externalities 
of life. 

Another phase of the controversy concerned the artistic value 
of the piéce bien faite (well-made play). The expression, when 
used approvingly, denotes a play in which the action develops 
through an inevitable sequence of cause and effect, in which 
every scene is so placed and so treated that to change it in the 
slightest degree would harm the total effect. Furthermore, the 
expression describes—and still with approval—a plot which un- 
folds with suspense and surprise and rises to several crises, as in 
CEdipus Rex. Aristotle’s Poetics is the first and in many ways 
the best discussion of the well-made play. 

When Scribe was turning out his clever plots, full of suspense, 
surprise and crises, the phrase was naturally applied to his plays; 
but, when critics began to point out that Scribe employed mere 
tricks to arouse theatrical excitement, the expression “piéce 
bien faite’ became a doubtful compliment. Sarcey says that 
about 1850 Scribe began to lose his reputation and by 1859 the 
public no longer wanted his piéces bien faites. Sarcey felt in 
1878 that Zola was tilting at windmills in attacking the well- 
made play. He denied that the plays of Labiche, Meilhac and 
Halévy, and Augier had the slightest relation to the well-made 
plays of Scribe. Sarcey’s statement is too sweeping. These 
authors were not abusing theatrical tricks as had Scribe; but 
Sardou and Dumas were devising very complicated plots with 
the scenes neatly dovetailed. Their dénouements were clever— 
too clever for the naturalists in theory. Dumas was presenting 
theses with many coups de thédtre. The naturalists demanded 
real life with few, if any, coups de thédire. On one point the 
critics and public were in agreement: the expression “well-made 
play” connoted disapproval by 1878. The idea is relative. In 
comparison with Scribe’s plays, Dumas’ Question. d’Argent is 
not well made; but in comparison with Becque’s Corbeaux it is. 


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NATURALISTIC DRAMA 553 


Compared with Gorky’s Lower Depths, Becque’s drama is beau- 
tifully made. 

A play should be a /ambeau d’existence (fragment of existence) 
according to Zola. It was Jean Jullien who coined the famous 
phrase, une tranche de vie (a slice of life), which was the ideal 
of the naturalists and which now is used in a deprecatory sense 
to describe plays which pretend to be real life because of their 
brutality. 

In his campaign against the complicated plot, Zola pointed out 
many examples of plays which owed their success to observation 
of life, analysis of character and depiction of milieu. He con- 
sidered Labiche superior to Sardou because his plots were not 
needlessly complicated. In praising Meilhac and Halévy’s Mari 
de la Débutante he said: “Once again, it is proved that the sub- 
ject does not matter, that plot can be lacking, that the characters 
do not even need to have any connection with the action; it is 
enough if the pictures offered to the public are living and make 
it laugh or cry.” This bold statement, expressing the attitude 
of the naturalists, implicitly denies in general all the accepted 
ideals of dramatic art. The pictures can be held together by 
a very thin thread. An obligatory scene is not necessary. 
Peripeteias may or may not take place. The dénouement does 
not matter. The interest is no longer in an ingenious mechanism, 
but in a series of true pictures. 

Allowance may be made for a certain amount of exaggeration 
in these statements enunciated in the heat of battle. Zola’s own 
plays are by no means lacking in plot, peripeteia or obligatory 
scenes. He insisted upon a logical dénouement in his Thérése 
Raquin. Nevertheless these principles were later put into effect 
to a remarkable degree; and, even when Zola enunciated them, 
he could at least point to plays which succeeded although they 
were lacking in most of the elements of the old dramatic code. 

Gondinet’s Club illustrates the growth of the naturalistic 
method. The plot is unimportant. It rests on the traditional 
situation of marital infidelity, treated in a serio-comic manner, 
but the interest lies in the keen and witty representation of a 


554 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


men’s club. In the second act we are shown an evening at the 
club, the different types of habitués, and all that goes on. Only 
men are present; and yet the plot develops in their conversation, 
which is delightful satire on club life. The third and fourth 
acts present a charity bazar, no less cleverly. Such pictures were 
hailed enthusiastically by the naturalists. A revival of Barriére’s 
Faux Bonshommes, first produced in 1856, gave Zola an oppor- 
tunity to point out that this play, with almost no plot, had out- 
lived Scribe’s clever concoctions, because of its incisive and 
somewhat acrid pictures of bourgeois life. Sarcey said, in 1889 
after the foundation of the Théatre Libre, that this play proved 
that the “pessimists of the Théatre Libre invented nothing.” 

Such dramas, however, were naturalistic by chance, not be- 
cause the authors were striving to produce dramas in which a 
series of life-like pictures would be substituted for clever intrigue. 
These plays succeeded in spite of the lack of plotting. The 
popularity of Sardou’s plays, constructed along Scribian lines, is 
evidence that the public enjoyed, as it always does, an intricate 
story unfolded with theatrical tricks. The dominating influence 
throughout the whole European theatre was the technique of 
Scribe and of Sardou, his most brilliant disciple. Their plays 
were produced constantly in all theatrical centres and even pene- 
trated America. The well-made play, whether combined with 
the problem of Dumas’ type or not, was in popular favor. Zola 
and the Goncourts could not stem the tide. 

Henri Becque tried for years to get Les Corbeaux produced. 
Here was a drama written consciously in the naturalistic method. 
Finally, in 1882, it was accepted by the Comédie Francaise. 
That the stronghold of tradition should even open its doors to 
naturalism is significant of the fact that the movement had 
progressed. Perrin, the director, was fully aware of the dangers 
of producing the play. He wanted changes made. Becque refused 
to alter his work. Once more the air of the old playhouse was 
charged with electricity as the curtain rose on this drama which 
aimed to destroy the conventions of the well-made play. 

The first act presents the characters and the environment. It 


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Og ee es 


Se SS ee eee 7. 


NATURALISTIC DRAMA 555 


is a series of pictures of bourgeois life, such as Diderot had advo- 
cated over a century before. Monsieur and Madame Vigneron 
are a bourgeois couple who have risen to a position of relative 
wealth through a factory which is their source of income. 
Vigneron is associated in the business with Teissier, who is not 
liked by the family. Their notary, Bourdon, has a rather shady 
reputation. The youngest of the four daughters is engaged to 
Georges de Saint-Genis, who is so splendidly null that he plays 
a mute role. His scheming mother controls his actions. Gaston, 
son of the Vignerons, is portrayed as a naturalistic study in 
heredity. He is spoiled by his father and has inherited his 
weaker qualities. The daughter Judith has some musical talent 
which is overpraised by her teacher, Merckens. Marie is calm, 
sensible and practical. These characters are brought together 
by the well-worn device of a dinner party which the naturalistic 
playwrights did not hesitate to employ. When all are assembled, 
a doctor enters. Vigneron, who has been slightly indisposed, 
has suffered a stroke of apoplexy and is dead. 

This act is a prologue, so far as the plot is concerned. Scarcely 
the slightest hint is given as to what may develop. There is 
preparation but no foreshadowing. Naturalistic drama relegates 
plot to a secondary réle, and often gives up the whole of the 
first act to just such analyses of the situation, the environment 
and the characters. The analytical method of the novelists, intro- 
duced by Balzac, was now influencing the dramatists. 

The second act opens a month after the death of Vigneron. 
Madame Vigneron and her daughters are in the throes of financial 
affairs of which they understand little. Bourdon, Teissier and 
Lefort, the architect, are advising them—badly. Vigneron had a 
large income, a potential fortune; but his affairs are in such a 
state that only fifty thousand francs will remain as capital, if 
the “Vultures” are able to carry out their plans. The question 
is: Must the factory be sold? Teissier has a legal right to dispose 
of it after the death of his partner. The women are utterly 
bewildered. The curtain falls as Judith reads aloud letter after 
letter demanding immediate settlement of their debts. 


556 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The bewilderment of the women is intensified in the third act. 
They do not know whom to trust or where to turn. They suspect 
Bourdon and Teissier, but do not dare nor know how to break 
with them. Marie shows a little understanding of the situation. 
Teissier, sixty years of age, is attracted by her. He offers her 
a way out of the difficulty. He will take her into his house and 
support her. Later, he may marry her. She refuses hotly this 
none too honorable offer. In the meantime, Madame de Saint- 
Genis has discovered the painful situation of their finances. She 
breaks off the engagement of her son to Blanche. The young 
girl loses her reason. She had given herself to the weakling. 

In the fourth act the financial affairs have been settled. The 
Vignerons have moved into a miserable apartment. They are 
living on their small capital. When Judith asks Merckens, her 
flattering music master of the first act, if she cannot support 
the family by her talent, he laughs at her and leaves. Teissier 
now makes a formal offer of marriage to Marie through Bourdon. 
The question is discussed in a dull, bitter, business-like manner. 
It is their way out. Teissier cannot live forever. Marie accepts 
his offer. ‘I am shameful, shameful in doing it. I would be 
guilty in not doing it,” she says. The scene is remarkable in 
its heavy, quiet tragedy. The last episode presents a so-called 
creditor trying to collect a bill that has already been paid. 
Teissier foils him and remarks only too truthfully to Marie: 
“Vou have been surrounded by rascals since your father’s death.” 

There are only two scenes in the play which are clearly “du 
thédtre”’ (of the theatre). One is the unexpected death of 
Vigneron. The other is the dramatic interview between Blanche 
and Madame de Saint-Genis. Becque unfortunately introduces 
this meeting with a monologue in which Madame de Saint-Genis 
informs the audience what she is going to do. This procedure is 
more than unnecessary. It is inartistic and robs the scene of 
legitimate suspense. Becque abuses the monologue throughout 
his plays. He may have done so consciously in order to show his 
contempt for the well-made play. On the other hand, Scribe and 
his followers never balked at the use of this device. The mono- 


NATURALISTIC DRAMA 07 


logue and the aside came under the ban only about the year 
1900. 

The rest of the scenes are analytical. The situation develops 
very slowly. The play represents the slow crumbling rather than 
the dramatic crash of the household. The old order of dramatic 
art, said the critics, gave the effect of life through movement. 
The new drama presented movement through life. Becque strove 
to construct an objective analysis of what happened to a family 
after the death of the breadwinner. No raisonneur guides the 
plot or the opinion of the audience. The objective attitude 
produced pessimism in drama as it had in the novel. The char- 
acters, including Marie, arouse only pity. We feel for them, 
almost never with them. The sympathetic hero—the béte noire 
of the naturalists—is conspicuously absent. 

The dénouement is neither sentimental nor grandly tragic. It 
is unobtrusively inevitable, pessimistic and cynical. It lacks, 
purposely, theatrical excitement. In comparison with the tense 
last moments of plays by Dumas or Sardou, Les Corbeaux con- 
tains no climax. Yet the scene between Marie, Teissier and the 
false creditor sums up the whole theme. It is far more difficult 
to devise such endings, than to fire a pistol shot and kill either 
hero or villain. The final impression on the audience of 1882 
was very different from that made by the usual play of the 
period. Only the ending of Augier’s Lionnes Pauvres could ap- 
proach this dénouement in its dull hopelessness. 

The play did not achieve popular success; but Becque did not 
lack admirers. His play became the model for the naturalists, 
who proclaimed its value almost too noisily. Les Corbeaux, how- 
ever, is much more a well-made play than his Michel Pauper 
which had failed utterly in 1870. This drama is a series of pic- 
tures which follow each other in temporal sequence. First one 
character and then another dominates the scene. The composi- 
tion resembles that of the naturalistic novel, and was therefore 
too loose for the taste of the period. 

The art of playwriting had become too much of a cut-and-dried 
“business.” ‘The dramatist pulled too many strings to keep his 


/ 


558 | THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


action moving. Those who are fully acquainted with the well- 
made play are so conscious of its mechanism that scenes and 
dialogue become too obvious. One can often foretell the whole 
development of the action. Seeing such a play is like watching a 
magician perform tricks of which the mechanics are known be- 
forehand. Drama was in danger of becoming as banal as thé 
ending of a motion picture. Thus the naturalists revolted against 
invention and composition, because they were products of the 
imagination, which, they held, was the primordial cause of the 
falsity of the drama. For imagination the dramatists strove to 
substitute observation of life. Their plays were to be. ‘slices of 
life.’ The phrase has become as much a term of mild contempt 
as the expression “well-made play”; but this movement exerted 
a salutary influence on dramatic art. However, a grave danger 
for the dramatist lurks in the presentation of slices of life on 
the stage. The dramatist who presents a series of pictures after 
the manner of the realistic novel and who deliberately presents 
them in a “beautiful disorder” is liable to obscure his meaning. 
Preparation, said ‘older playwrights, is necessary for the sake of 
clarity. Without clarity there is no theatre. Preparation, replied 
the naturalist, is too mechanical. The dovetailing of scenes is 
unreal. -Both contentions are correct; but the naturalistic 
dramatist sometimes forgot that in the novel there were long 
passages of analysis and explanation which welded the slices of 
life into a unified whole, and which take the place of preparation 
on the stage. Slices of life in the theatre often give the effect of 
being merely juxtaposed. The spectator is called upon to supply 
the transition which the novelist gives the reader. 

This is not an utterly impossible demand to make of the audi- 
ence. In the last forty years, the spectator has learned to receive 
impressions and to unify them; but the dramatist who aims to 
use this method must weigh every scene, every line. He must 
guide the spectator more skilfully, if he elects to guide him 
delicately and unobviously. It is more difficult to write a non- 
well-made play than a well-made play. Shakespeares and 
Mussets are rarer than Scribes. Their “beautiful disorder,” 


i 


NATURALISTIC DRAMA 559 


their impressionism and even obscurity were cited as arguments 
in favor of the naturalistic method. | 

The progress of the non-well-made play can be illustrated by 
the fate of Daudet’s L’Arlésienne. When first produced in 1872 it 
was a failure. Daudet was informed that he had not the gift 
of playwriting. The plot was considered too tenuous and the 
situation remained static. The play is a dramatization of a short 
story which is masterful in its vivid brevity. The bare situation 
presents a young peasant who is madly in love with a girl of 
Arles. His family consents to their marriage. A horse-jockey 
arrives; and, in order to prevent the marriage, he informs the 
family that he is the girl’s lover. The young peasant throws 
himself from a lofty window. 

Daudet expanded the sketch into a play in three acts and five 
scenes accompanied by Bizet’s music. He added a young peasant 
girl, Vivette, in love with Frédéri, the hero. Also he introduced 
a backward younger brother, known as The Innocent, and other 
secondary roles. A striking element in the construction of the 
short story is that the girl from Arles is, so to speak, behind the 
scenes. Still more surprising is the fact that she never appears 
in the play, to which she gives the title. We do not even know 
her name. 

There is very little of what was then considered dramatic in 
the play. The marriage is broken off when the jockey produces 
love letters from the girl. Frédéri is finally affianced to Vivette ; 
but when he overhears the jockey tell how he is going to carry 
off the girl, his mad passion for her returns. Then comes the 
suicide. There is little preparation and only a few lines of 
foreshadowing. Mention is made of the superstition that a dull 
child brings happiness and protection, and thus doom is fore- 
boded when The Innocent begins “to awaken.” 

That such simplicity of plot and lack of development caused 
the play to fail in 1872 is not surprising. But in 1885, the revival 
of L’Arlésienne was a complete success. The press critics, ac- 
cording to Sarcey, insisted that now anything could be put on 
the stage with success, an idyl, a short story without a trace of 


560 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


dramatic form. As for himself, he found the play a “mortal 
bore,” which happened to please the public mostly because of 
Bizet’s ‘music. The present writer saw the play in 1906 and he 
agreed heartily with Sarcey. A play without movement in which 
the heroine did not appear seemed undramatic. Many years have 
passed and now he is not so sure of the meaning of the word 
dramatic. As for the non-appearance of the heroine, that may 
be due to great art or to lack of art on the part of Daudet. 
Sarcey held it was the latter. But just such departures from 
usual procedure have become a part of the new dramatic tech- 
nique in the Little Theatre in its search for sensations. | 

Because of the failure of his plays, Zola could be only the 
theoretical leader of naturalism in the theatre. A practical leader 
was needed. He appeared in the person of André Antoine—an 
employé of the Gas Company, who had a passion for the theatre. 
Imbued with Zola’s theories, he came to the conclusion that the 
modern stage was false in every respect. He formed a band of 
young enthusiasts who shared his views; and, in 1887, he pro- 
duced two bills in a cramped hall with benches for seats. The 
first bill, given in March, was saved from complete failure by 
the success of Jacques Damour, a play in one act by Hennique 
from Zola’s novel; but Méténier’s En Famille and Bergerat’s 
Nuit Bergamasque, produced in May, established artistically the 
Théatre Libre, as Antoine called his group. The undertaking 
was financially unstable and only seven or eight bills were given 
a year; but naturalism had found a theatre. Soon the established 
playhouses, including the Comédie and the Odéon, had to reckon 
with Antoine’s Théatre Libre, where many of the living French 
playwrights found a stage for their early plays and where the 
realistic drama of other nations was first produced in France. 
The name Théatre Libre had to be given up by Antoine for 
business reasons, but the movement of the Free Theatre con- 
tinued as he founded the Théatre Antoine. Indeed, the name 
became a synonym of naturalism in the drama. 

Tolstoi’s Power of Darkness was written in 1886, but the cen- 
sorship forbade its production on the Russian stage. The play 


NATURALISTIC DRAMA 561 


was destined to be one of the important influences in the revolu- 
tion of dramatic art, for Antoine produced it in 1888 with success 
in Paris and later took it to Brussels where it was also acclaimed. 
Inspired by Antoine’s example, the society of the Freie Bihne 
gave the play in Berlin. The influence of the Russians undermined 
the belief that drama must conform to certain traditions. Dra- 
matic art differs from the art of writing fiction; but it does 
not follow, as was believed, that certain themes and situations 
can only be given artistic treatment on the printed page. Every- 
thing in life can be presented on the stage. The Free Theatre, 
it is true, inclined too much towards winning a place for natural- 
ism, Other directors, such as Lugné-Poé in Paris and Stanis- 
lavsky in Moscow had to open the theatre to symbolic drama 
and to static drama. Yet the Théatre Libre in Paris was largely 
instrumental in making the old cry “Ce n’est pas du théatre” 
ridiculous. Catulle Mendez wrote to Antoine in 1887: “Ce qui 
n'est pas du thédtre, vous le jouez sur votre théatre.” 

When Antoine announced the production of The Power of 
Darkness, the Parisian newspapers asked some of the older 
dramatists their opinion of the undertaking. Dumas replied that 
the play was too sombre and contained no sympathetic character. 
Sardou felt that the play could only be read, although it was 
“cruelly true and very beautiful.” For Augier it was a novel 
in dialogue form and too long for the French stage. These sup- 
posed faults turned out to be virtues for the audience, which was 
weary of sympathetic characters, and wanted sober, cruel truth 
represented without the romance of patent-leather shoes and cos- 
tumes of the drawing-rooms of Dumas. 

Tolstoi found it difficult to turn his creative effort from the 
novel to the drama. Dialogue in his fiction is of secondary 
importance. He introduced monologues with a feeling of guilt. 
Nevertheless he succeeded in producing a play which was far 
more “of the theatre” than Gorky’s later Lower Depths. How- 
ever, in 1888, The Power of Darkness seemed to hostile critics 
undramatic in many scenes and excessively melodramatic in 
others. 


562 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


It is a study of peasant life and naturalistic in the sense that 
repulsive and gruesome details abound in the dialogue and situa- 
tions. At the same time, Te Power of Darkness is Tolstoi’s 
protest against the ignorance, evil and the darkness in which 
peasants were forced to dwell in Russia. He shows how crime 
follows upon crime, for, as Akim warns his son: “If but one 
claw is caught the whole bird is lost.” } 

The story is short. Nikita, a young peasant, has become the 
lover of Anisya, wife of his employer. He refuses to marry a girl 
he has seduced, and helps Anisya give her husband slow poison 
furnished by his mother. Married to Anisya, he makes love to 
his half-witted step-daughter and becomes the father of her child. 
In order to marry off Akulina, he kills the child a few minutes 
after its birth, at the instigation of his wife and his mother. 
When Akulina is being married, he confesses all his crimes. 

Tolstoi wrote the scene of the murder and burial of the child 
in two different forms. Antoine produced it in the ghastly ver- 
sion in which the action practically passes before our eyes. 
Nikita is concealed in the cellar, but the dialogue between him 
and the women describes the gruesome act as it takes place. 
No doubt Antoine wished to give his public the strongest possible 
dose of naturalism; but just such scenes form an indictment of 
the naturalistic method carried to excess. The play is now pro- 
duced by Pitoéff with the variant scene, in which the action 
comes to us through the ears of a frightened child who cannot 
sleep but hears vague, though significant sounds; and then 
Nikita appears, horror-stricken at his deed. Thus presented, 
the scene is dramatic and tragic, whereas the first version is so 
gruesome that it arouses disgust. ; 

Thalasso, the sympathetic historian of the Théatre Libre said in 
1909 that when Antoine produced his second bill on May 30, 
1887, “contemporary dramatic art was born.” But contempo- 
rary drama has gone beyond naturalism, and other European 
countries had a share in the creation of the transcript of life 
on the stage. By 1890, France no longer held the undisputed 
leadership in dramatic art. Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Rus- 


st ati a nies eel 


ee ee 


ee ee 


NATURALISTIC DRAMA 563 


sian, German and Belgian dramas began to be produced by 
Antoine and others who formed Little Theatre groups. Thus 
one of the important effects of the war waged by the Théatre 
Libre was to live up to its name and to set the theatre free. 
Developments in dramatic art became less national and more 
European. Naturalism was to become as conventionalized in 
many respects as the older forms of drama; but in the struggle 
to introduce it on the stage, all conventions were declared in- 
valid. A period of experimentation ensued. Not only in France 
but all through Europe, the repertory theatre had to compete 
with the laboratory theatre. Complacency, which arises from 
pride in tradition, was severely jarred by bands of iconoclasts 
who set up stages in purlieus of great capitals and produced all 
kinds of dramas which were not “in accord with the rules.” 
They were often failures, but somehow were interesting. Thus 
the naturalistic movement in drama not only fought the conven- 
tions of the well-made play but also was a manifestation, if not 
the cause, of the broadening and the development of dramatic 
art along many lines. 

The season of 1892-1893 was the quatre-vingt-treize of the 
Free Theatre. At that time drama finally freed itself from the 
old conventions and limitations which are not inherent in the art 
itself. Many different forms of drama found a hearing on the 
European stage. Shaw’s first play, Widowers’ Houses, was pro- 
duced in London. Pinero’s Second Mrs. Tanqueray gave the 
Londoners an example of Ibsen’s methods applied to a problem in 
British surroundings. Ibsen’s Master Builder, a combination of 
realism and symbolism, was performed for the first time on any 
stage in Berlin and later in London. Bjornson’s Beyond Human 
Power reached the Parisian stage. Maeterlinck’s symbolistic 
Pelléas and Mélisande had its world premiére in Paris. Oscar 
Wilde’s Salome was prohibited after the first performance in 
Paris but was published in French. Sudermann produced his 
masterpiece Magda (Heimat). Schnitzler wrote Anatol. Haupt- 
mann’s naturalistic and plotless Weavers was played first in 
Berlin and then in Paris. In his Assumption of Hannele he left 


564 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the naturalistic world for a land of poetry and dreams. Hannele 
borders on expressionism. The season was rich in performance 
and in promise. 

The Weavers delivered a strong blow against the old ideals of 
plot and individual characters. The play presents a series of 
facts and pictures of conditions of the weavers of Germany about 
1840. Their misery and their revolt are depicted. Whether they 
triumphed over their employers or ameliorated their condition we 
do not know. The play has no dénouement. It simply stops. 
The acts might well be the dramatization of five special articles 
written for a newspaper during a period of social unrest. The 
play contains no more plot than does a newspaper story. Cer- 
tain events are represented. Each act presents a different milieu. 
New characters are introduced in each act. There is no single 
hero, no careful analysis of any character; no love story of any 
kind. The weavers, both those endowed with individual roles 
and the collective mob, are the protagonists. In this respect 
they resemble the chorus in early Greek tragedy. 

The old test of the relation of plot and character cannot be 
applied to this play. Although drama was to become more com- 
pletely static in Gorky’s Lower Depths, this play was revolu- 
tionary in 1893 in its disregard of the importance of action as 
the indispensable element of dramatic art. When Sarcey re- 
viewed The Weavers he admitted that even unity of action was 
no longer necessary. Unity of impression was sufficient. Thus 
the last of the pseudo-Aristotelian unities remains as a valid law 
only in academic circles. In 1894 Brunetiére formulated his 
“law of the drama”; but even this law, which dominated academic 
criticism for years, has had to give way before the steady ad- 
vance of a theatre which refuses to be bound by conventions. 


CHAPTER XIX 
GERMAN FATE-TRAGEDY. HEBBEL. IBSEN 


RAGEDY has been defined as the spectacle of a man strug- 
ae gling against the unconquerable. If the unconquerable is 
also the invisible and intangible and works mysteriously, the 
spectacle seems to be more thrilling whether it be a Greek 
presentation of the operation of the curse on the house of 
Atreus, the coming of Death in Maeterlinck’s Jntruse, the influ- 
ence of social environment in Hebbel’s Maria Magdalena, or of 
heredity in Ibsen’s Ghosts. Even today many critics in their 
overwrought enthusiasm consider all tragedies which they admire 
as representations of the working of Fate, Destiny or Nemesis— 
spelled with a capital. The words have became as meaningless 
as the recurrent description of a tragic hero as a “man face to 
face with the Universe,’”’ which sounds so overwhelmingly tragic 
and is so trite. The common denominator of all these expressions 
is an invisible, intangible, invincible force opposing an indi- 

vidual. It would be well if the critics would declare a mora- 
—torium on the word “fate,” and call this force by its right name 
whether it be an oracular curse of the gods or the action of 
the thyroid gland. 

A curious manifestation of the action of fate in drama is found 
in the German Schicksalstragodie (fate-tragedy), which flour- 
ished in the first part of the nineteenth century. Schiller’s study 
of Greek tragedy led him to the introduction of the idea of 
Nemesis into his own plays. The action of his Braut von Mes- 
sina is based upon the fulfillment of an oracle in a surprising 
manner. The play foreshadows the fate-tragedies in which a 
curse becomes operative. Occultism, spiritualism and supersti- 
tion also contributed to the success of this form of drama of 
which the first example and the model for many years was 
Werner’s Vierundzwanzigste Februar. 

565 


566 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The idea of the play was suggested to Werner by Goethe who 
produced this one-act tragedy in Weimar on the 24th of Febru- 
ary, 1810, before an audience that was both thrilled and horri- 
fied. The plot of the play is reminiscent of Lillo’s Fatal 
Curiosity in which a long-lost son returns to his poverty-stricken 
parents, conceals his identity in order to make their joy com- 
plete the next day, and is murdered by his father for his wealth. 
In Lillo’s play there is but a faint idea of the operation of fate. 
Werner employs. almost every device of the supernatural and 
fatalistic in constructing this thriller which anticipated the 
clap-trap of the Grand Guignol by a century. 

The curtain discloses the interior of an isolated Alpine inn. 
The clock strikes eleven at night. The tempest is howling. 
Trude, the innkeeper’s wife, indulges in a monologue as she 
spins. Her husband does not return. They have naught to eat. 
No fire. The curse is fulfilled. An owl knocks on the window. 
Another knock. This time it is Kuruth, her husband. He bears 
an order—written that day, the 24th of February, 1804—to pay 
his creditor or to be arrested for debt on the morrow at eight 
o’clock. Nothing is left for him but suicide. The fatal 24th 
of February, ’twas then in 1776 that his father died and pro- 
nounced the curse. Another knock. A stranger enters who 
immediately explains to the audience in a convenient aside that 
he is the long-lost son, Kurt. (Playmaking was easy in those 
days.) The stranger gives them food and drink. He also seems 
to know an uncanny amount about them and the curse. Kuruth 
finally tells the whole story. His father was hot-headed, and 
one day, the fatal 24th of February, abused his son’s wife. 
Kuruth hurled at him a knife with which he had been sharpening 
a scythe. It missed, but his father cried out: “May you be mur- 
derer of a murderer, as you have murdered me”; and promptly 
died of apoplexy. Two children were born to them—a boy and 
a girl. The boy bore the mark of Cain—a blood-red scythe. 
When the boy was seven, he saw his mother kill a chicken on 
the 24th of February. In a spirit of imitative play he took the 
knife and killed his sister. His father cursed him. The child 


GERMAN FATE-TRAGEDY 567 


was sent away to an uncle to protect him from his father. Mis- 
fortune after misfortune arrived—always on the 24th of Feb- 
ruary. Kurt is deeply touched. He would like to relieve 
their misery. (Of course there is no real reason why he should 
not, for he knows that the curse on him has been withdrawn by 
his father; but if he disclosed his identity the whole play would 
be spoiled.) So Kurt tells his story. He also tells them that 
their son was a victim of the French Revolution and died in his 
arms. He is rich. He is going to bring happiness to his parents 
who live near. The constables will arrive at eight. Well, let 
them awaken him at seven. He enters the small bedroom. As 
he hangs up his clothes, he pulls out the nail. Putting it back, 
he causes the fatal knife to fall at Trude’s feet on the other 
side of the partition. Kuruth finally decides to kill the stranger 
and rob him. He was a suspicious character anyway, and ad- 
mitted being a murderer. He plunges the knife home. The 
victim hands them his passport. He is Kurt, their son. The 
curse has operated. ‘Another 24th of February. Most unhappy 
day. God’s mercy is eternal. Amen.” 

When Goethe was reproached for having permitted such a 
play on the stage at Weimar, he replied: “You are right, but one 
doesn’t always drink wine, sometimes one drinks brandy.” Had 
he known that this play was to call forth a legion of melo- 
dramatic imitations he would have thought that he had been 
drinking wood alcohol, for German fate-tragedy is denatured 
Greek tragedy in a very raw form. Nemesis becomes the super- 
stition of old wives’ tales. | 

When Aristotle insisted that drama should represent the in- 
evitable development of an action, he referred to the inevitable 
psychological development. Nemesis or fate or destiny which 
makes an otherwise reasonable character act like a moron is a 
travesty worthy of farce-comedy at best. The idea of fate con- 
trolling the destiny of man in a surprising fashion would have 
persisted in drama without these German plays; but their exist- 
ence is significant of the tenacity of the idea which they helped 
to emphasize. The influence of heredity and environment as 


568 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


_ portrayed by Hebbel, Ibsen and their successors is a variation 
of this dramatic idea in a rational age of scientific and philo- 
sophical determinism. 

Bourgeois drama was more successful in Germany than in 
France. The treatment of the themes of the illegitimate child, 
intermarriage of classes, maidens betrayed by men of noble birth 
was naturally more sentimental than tragic in an age of sensi- 
bility. Structurally these plays hold a middle ground between 
the close-knit French drame and the more loosely constructed 
English plays. Their importance lies in the fact that they 
treated the themes which were to become the tragic problems 
in drama of the nineteenth century. As there were no tradi- 
tional rules of decorum in the German theatre, scenes of realism 
were mingled with scenes of sentimentality. The dialogue was 
much coarser than that permitted on the French stage until the 
close of the century. Thus, when Madame Molé adapted Kotz- 
bue’s Menschenhass und Reue she suppressed most of the purely 
homely Germanic local color, dropped several commonplace 
scenes, and re-arranged the play so that there would be no change 
of scene within the acts. 

It frequently happens that the second-rate playwright attains 
international reputation, especially if he combines theatrical 
effectiveness with sentimentality. Such was the case of Kotzebue. 
He won success not only in Germany but in England, Russia and 
even France. All kinds of plays flowed from his facile pen in 
great numbers. His Menschenhass und Reue (1789) is one of 
the first modern dramas in which the heroine is an unfaithful 
wife, a character destined to dominate the serious theatre of 
the nineteenth century. However, she is much more sentimental 
than tragic. Much of the play consists of scenes presenting 
her as a wholly repentant woman spending her life in perform- 
ing good deeds. Her husband is depicted as a charitable misan- 
thrope but his hatred of mankind is only skin-deep. 

Before the play opens, Eulalia has left her husband, Meinau, 
because he did not gratify her desire to live a life of luxury. 
Her lover never appears and his character is only sketched. He 


a a 


HEBBEL 569 


was a mere trifler. None of the usual phases of the question of 
infidelity such as were to be treated in the nineteenth century 
are discussed. ‘The situation is given a romantic, sentimental 
coloring. Eulalia has been given charge of an estate. For four 
months an unknown man has been renting a small lodge near 
the chateau. Neither one has seen the other, since their meeting 
is to be the climax of the play in the last act. When the recogni- 
tion takes place by chance each vies with the other in generosity. 
Eulalia offers her husband a divorce; he offers her a fortune. 
Both are refused. They are about to separate forever when their 
children appear as gods from the machine, and their mutual 
love conquers. The curtain falls on the usual sentimental 
tableau of the re-united family which was so dear to artists and 
dramatists of this period. This solution of the problem of the 
unfaithful wife aroused criticism and it is a far cry from such 
a dénouement to the usual unhappy fate of such heroines in the 
next century. 

This play was produced in Paris in 1792. A second version 
was made by Madame Molé and produced with success first in 
1799 and later in 1823, with Talma and Mlle. Mars in the cast. 
Gérard de Nerval adapted it for the stage in 1855, and it was 
revived once more in 1862. Several literary translations were 
also published. Thus the unfaithful wife first reached the 
French stage by way of Germany. 

Even in Germany, however, the bourgeois drama was finally 
discredited. Hebbel assigned the cause of this reaction to the 
fact that the plays dealt with externalities rather than with the 
inner elements of character. The love affairs of a bourgeois 
maiden with a nobleman, lack of money, class distinction, were 
pathetic but not tragic situations. If external circumstances were 
different, the problem would not exist. Partially anticipating 
Brunetiere’s law of the drama, Hebbel pointed out in 1843 that 
tragedy arises from the operation of the will, “the obstinate ex- 
tension of the ego,” especially from the struggle between the in- 
dividual will and the world-will, or a will inherent in the universe. 
In his theory character was far more important than the dra- 


570 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


matic fable. (Mein Wort iiber das Drama.) He advocated the 
presentation of situations brought about by inner experience 
rather than external circumstances such as class distinction. 
(Preface to Maria Magdalena.) 

In his Maria Magdalena (1844) he presents a tragedy of the 
middle classes arising from the bourgeois psychology of Anton 
rather than from any externality, such as the betrayal of his 
daughter by a man of rank. Her betrayer is of her own class. 
Maria Magdalena is a picture of bourgeois society, practically 
an indictment of the middle classes. Sentimentality has given 
way to realism. | 

It is a Sunday morning in the home of Anton, the master- 
joiner. His wife is putting on her wedding-dress to go to church 
in order to give thanks for her recovery from a dangerous illness. 
Karl, the son, is depicted as a wayward boy, demanding money, 
revolting at the narrowness of the home. His father’s stern- 
ness and intolerance have totally estranged the youth. Leonhard 
is in love with the daughter Klara. In a scene between them, 
we find that he has forced her to give herself to him. He was 
jealous of her childhood friend who has lately returned as a 
Secretary. Leonhard has gained the position of cashier by get- 
ting the other candidate drunk before the examination. Klara 
is disgusted at being chained to such a man. Leonhard learns 
that Klara has no dowry. Her stern but just father has given 
it to help his old benefactor. When Karl is arrested for rob- 
bery, Leonhard breaks his troth with Klara. The news of her 
son’s disgrace kills the mother. 

In the second act, old Anton is shown a prey to the fear of 
what people will say of him—the father of a thief. His words 
burn into Klara’s soul. He would cut his throat if she were 
not innocent. Karl is freed from prison. He was wrongly 
accused. Now, Klara alone bears the burden. Her friend, the 
Secretary, declares hig love for her. She confesses the truth 
to him. 

The third act takes us to Leonhard’s room. Klara asks him 
to marry her, now that her brother’s innocence is proved. He 


TT ae 


HEBBEL 571 


refuses brutally. When she has gone, the Secretary comes and 
takes Leonhard away to fight a duel. The scene changes to 
Anton’s house. Karl has returned. “If you had done it, he’d 
have killed himself,’ Karl says to Klara. She goes forth. The 
Secretary comes. He is wounded but has killed Leonhard. 
Klara is avenged. The Secretary makes Anton promise not to 
turn her out if she . . . but she has thrown herself down the 
well. “You sent her on the road to death,” cries the Secretary 
to Anton, “and I, I’m to blame that she didn’t turn back. When 
you suspected her misfortune, you thought of the tongues that 
would hiss at it, but not of the worthlessness of the snakes that 
own them. You said things that drove her to despair. And I, 
instead of folding her in my arms, when she opened her heart 
to me in nameless terror, thought of the knave that might mock 
at me.” The curtain falls on Anton’s line, expressive of the 
completeness of the tragedy: “I don’t understand the world any 
more.” 

Maria Magdalena is the tragedy of Anton rather than of 
Klara who is a victim of the bourgeois virtues of Anton which 
he magnified into vices. His rectitude, piety, thrift, pride and 
sense of morality have made him the inhuman instrument of 
destruction of his family. The play is a dramatization of 
Hebbel’s statement made in his diary: ‘There is no worse tyrant 
than the common man in his own family circle.” But more 
than that, it is an analysis of a segment of society and the 
turmoil resulting from its social ideals and prejudices. Hebbel’s 
substitution of inner conflict for the conflict of externalities pro- 
duced social: tragedy. The theme is treated with such objec- 
tivity and is so free from sentimentality that the final impres- 
sion is realistic. Indeed, the play was not fully appreciated 
until after realism had won its place in the theatre towards the 
close of the century. 

But Hebbel did not continue to treat themes of middle-class 
society. Nor was Ludwig’s Erbfdrster (1850) nor Freytag’s 
Die Valentine (1847) and Graf Waldemar (1848) powerful 
enough to foster the development of bourgeois tragedy. Lud- 


572 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


wig’s play deals with middle-class people, but the plot turns into 
a melodramatic situation in which a father shoots his daughter 
by mistake. He is led to act by his uncompromising, stubborn 
nature. The play is more a portrayal of character than a rep- 
resentation of a social problem. So much of the interest de- 
pends upon chance and circumstantial evidence of murders, 
that it represents a special case. 

The old themes of class distinction and the difference in class 
ideals continued to form the basis of dramatic conflict until 
Ibsen began to carry on the work begun by Hebbel in Maria 
Magdalena and dramatized the struggle between the individual 
and social laws. Hebbel treated the problem of the woman 
who is considered to be the man’s chattel in Gyges und sein 
Ring and in Herodes und Mariamne before Ibsen founded A 
Doll’s House on this situation. In Judith, Hebbel speaks of 
ill-assorted marriages as productive of ghosts. But the setting 
of these dramas is not in the far distant past and the treatment 
of the problems is more mystical than realistic. 

These two playwrights held many ideas in common; but the 
idea that Hebbel introduced the unveiling of the past or analytic 
method of playwriting and that Ibsen derived his practice from 
Hebbel is a partial misconception. English playwrights had 
not employed this method in bourgeois drama. They employed 
an early point of attack and presented most of the events on 
the stage. The French dramatists, especially Diderot, naturally 
observed the unity of time and placed the point of attack late 
in the story. Schiller had realized that the analytic method 
was effective, not because it preserved a realistic unity of time, 
but because it made possible the presentation of a composite 
action in a brief space of time. He had employed this method 
both for purposes of plot and analysis of character. Although 
the Germans were never so strict as the French in regard to 
changes of scene and lapse of time, they usually employed a 
late point of attack in bourgeois drama. The analytic method 
and the unveiling of the past were a natural result and were 
introduced long before Hebbel’s time as a consequence of the 


IBSEN 573 


imitation of the structure of the French drame of the eighteenth 
century. Although Hebbel did not introduce the analytic 
method, he showed how effective it may be as a means of 
analyzing character and showing the cumulative effect of ap- 
parently minor elements of the past upon a tragic crisis of the 
present. 

Hebbel prepared the way for Ibsen and the development of 
the social drama of the latter half of the century; but he was 
not responsible for the ensuing evolution of dramatic art, be- 
cause he did not continue to produce plays of the type of Maria 
Magdalena. For this reason a Norwegian was hailed by the 
German naturalists and founders of the Freie Bihne as the in- 
novator in dramatic art at the close of the nineteenth century, 
after German drama had reached the low level of mediocrity 
in the seventies and early eighties. In 1889 the Freie Biihne 
was founded in Berlin on the model of Antoine’s Théatre Libre 
of Paris. Ibsen’s Ghosts was given as its first offering. It 
was then that Hebbel, Ludwig and Anzengruber began to be 
fully appreciated as dramatists who had long carried the torch 
of realistic drama. When Ibsen was hailed by the Germans 
as the regenerator of dramatic art, he said: “They had long 
had their Hebbel.” 

Until 1850 there was no Norwegian drama. In 1851 young 
Ibsen was appointed director of the newly established theatre 
in Bergen. He held this post for six years. When he died in 
1906, his dramas had been acclaimed in all European theatres 
and his art of playwriting had become the model for students 
of dramatic technique and for many dramatists of the late nine- 
teenth century. Ibsen was the outstanding figure of his age 
in dramatic art. Otto Brahm said: “The gates to the most 
modern German drama were opened when Ghosts appeared on 
the stage” (of the Freie Biihne). The remark applies equally 
well to all stages upon which that play and his other dramas 
were produced. The Free Theatre—the theatre in which audi- 
ences are supposed to be over twenty-five years of age men- 
tally—is the legacy of Ibsen wherever it exists. The drama of 


574. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


ideas came into its own as he produced, at intervals of two years, 
his series of plays beginning with A Doll’s House (1879) and 
ending with When We Dead Awaken (1899). 

His first method of playmaking was derived from German 
and French romantic dramatists and from Scribe. Under his 
direction in Bergen, one hundred and forty-five plays were pro- 
duced. Of these, seventy-five were by French authors and 
twenty-one were by Scribe himself. He learned the tricks of 
the well-made play. He employed them and then cast them 
aside. 

His first play of importance, Lady Inger of Ostrat (1855), 
is a romantic tragedy in the regulation five acts. It contains 
all the elements common to that type of drama which had 
flourished in Germany and France. Lady Inger, thinking to 
raise her long-lost son to kingship, orders the murder of a rival 
claimant who is discovered by a token, in the shape of a ring, 
to be her son. Her daughter falls in love with the betrayer of 
an elder sister. Confusion of names, unknown strangers, ghosts, 
papers, poison cups, vaults, love at first sight, sudden entrances 
through windows, fatal mistakes of identity, ambuscades make 
the plot too complex to be clear. The characters are subservient 
to the situation. Ibsen showed a knowledge of all the devices 
of dramatic art of the previous generation; but he did not yet 
employ them with the deftness of Scribe. 

The influence of Scribian technique on Ibsen during his years 
of apprenticeship has been clearly demonstrated by Mr. William 
Archer who says of The Feast at Solhoug: “It may indeed be 
called Scribe’s Bataille de Dames writ tragic. . . . All the in- 
genious dovetailing of incidents and working-up of misunder- 
standings, Ibsen unquestionably learned from the French. The 
French language, indeed, is the only one which has a word— 
quiproquo—to indicate the class of misunderstanding which from 
Lady Inger down to The League of Youth, Ibsen employed with- 
out scruple.” 

The League of Youth (1869) is a tissue of misunderstand- 
ings and quiproquo which eclipses the theme of the play. It is 


' 
‘ 

{ 

P 
4 
4 


IBSEN 575 


an outstanding example of what havoc to truth can be wrought 
by these methods of building plays, and shows how a comedy 
can be turned into that most unfortunate kind of drama: a 
farce with pretensions of ideas. Ibsen had now acquired much - 
of the deftness of Scribe; but in order to be the real Ibsen 
whom we know, he had to discard the art of plotting he had 
learned. 

Pillars of Society (1877) is a better piece of dramatic art 
because the theme is not obscured by obvious tricks. It was 
received enthusiastically in Germany. Ibsen began to enjoy 
an international reputation; but had his activities as a play- 
wright ceased with this play, he would have gone down to pos- 
terity as an excellent imitator of the French school of dramatic 
art as practiced by Augier and Dumas. In November, 1878, 
he jotted down “Notes for the Modern Tragedy.” The phrase 
is significant, for these notes were to expand into A Doll’s 
House; and this drama is the transition from the old to a new 
form of tragedy. 


There are two kinds of spiritual law, two kinds of conscience, 
one in man, and another, altogether different, in woman. They do 
not understand each other; but in practical life the woman is judged 
by man’s law, as though she were not a woman but a man. 

The wife in the play ends by having no idea of what is right or 
wrong; natural feeling on the one hand, belief in authority on the 
other have altogether bewildered her. 

A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, 
which is exclusively a masculine society, with laws framed by men 
and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a 
masculine point of view. 

She has committed forgery, and she is proud of it; for she did it 
out of love for her husband to save his life. But this husband with 
his commonplace principles of honor is on the side of the law and 
regards the question with masculine eyes. 


It was thus that the impulse came to Ibsen to write A Doll’s 
House. His point of departure was a problem, called in those 


576 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


days “The Woman Question.” The French dramatists had pro- 
duced the problem play and the drama of ideas; but they 
wrote like lawyers who have something to prove. The piéce @ 
thése is literally and actually a play with a thesis. For that 
reason it often departs from true life in order to carry its point. 
The raisonneur is an advocate. Ibsen took sides. He thought 
too deeply, too passionately to assume a calm, judicial posi- 
tion. Yet he presented this problem in a way that shocked the 
sentimental optimists who want a happy ending to all human 
questions on the stage, and grieved the sentimental pessimists 
who think that unsolvable problems can be solved by a pistol 
shot. He was a naturalist in the best sense of the word, for 
he presented life without trying to solve one of its greatest 
enigmas. 

The curtain rises on the living roomy of Nora and Helmer. 
There is nothing new in the setting. It is merely realistic rep- 
resentation. Ibsen never came under the influence of the new 
stagecraft because his life work was completed before that 
movement revolutionized dramatic art. 

Into this room comes Nora. It is Christmas time. A joyous 
atmosphere pervades this house. Without wasting a word, Ibsen 
quickly shows us that Nora does not have masculine ideas of 
money. She is relieved of some financial burden. She wants 
to be extravagant. She is capable of deception. Helmer treats 
her as a charming doll—as had her father—and as a sweet little 
song bird. This opening scene gives impressions unobtrusively. 
Up to this point it is exposition in the new style. But with the 
entrance of Mrs. Linden, the old form of exposition is em- 
ployed. She is a friend whom Nora has not seen for years, to 
whom Nora tells a part of her story. Nora’s husband was ill. 
A journey to Italy was necessary to save his life. She pro- 
cured the money in a mysterious manner. She has been pay- 
ing the debt ever since that time. Her husband knows nothing 
about it. Was the money furnished by an admirer of hers, 
possibly Dr. Rank? Probably not. Her husband has been ap- 
pointed to a high position in a bank. The debt is almost paid. 


ro 
Sa ee 


ee ee ae ee 


IBSEN 577 


Nora, left alone with her children, is wildly romping with them 
about the Christmas tree when Krogstad enters. Rank has de- 
scribed him as a moral incurable. His past is dishonorable. 
He is trying to rise but Helmer has decided to dismiss him 
from the bank. Krogstad asks Nora to intercede for him. He 
loaned her the money years ago. She forged her father’s name 
to the note. He threatens exposure. Nora cannot understand 
that she committed a crime—that the law is against her. She 
did it to save her husband’s life! 

With this scene the exposition and the unveiling of events of 
the past come temporarily to an end. Curiosity has become sus- 
pense. The situation is fraught with dramatic tenseness; and 
the plot seems to be of paramount importance, when Helmer 
refuses to retain Krogstad in his employ in spite of Nora’s in- 
tercession. The psychological element, however, enters the 
drama at this moment. Helmer shocks and bewilders Nora by 
telling her that a lying mother corrupts her children. In speak- 
ing of Krogstad, Helmer says: “. ..In such an atmosphere 
of lies home life is poisoned and contaminated in every fibre. 
Every breath the children draw contains some germ of evil.” 
The act ends with Nora crying out “Corrupt my children!— 
Poison my home! It’s not true! It can never be true!” 

The tragedy of the modern woman begins to overshadow the 
dramatic plot. The question as to whether Nora’s forgery will 
be discovered pales in comparison with the question of the status 
of woman in relation to masculine ideals. Nora begins to think. 
The spectator does likewise. However, the interest in the plot 
does not disappear. Ibsen had not yet given up any of the 
traditional methods of arousing suspense and excitement. The 
entrances and exits of his characters are carefully timed. In- 
deed, the time element is as important as in any one of Scribe’s 
plays. The plot even hinges upon letters, the moment of their 
arrival and of the disclosure of their contents. 

The second act opens as Nora anxiously searches the letter 
box for Krogstad’s incriminating message. Sardou, in Pattes 


578 | THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


de Mouche (A Scrap of Paper), was no more dexterous than 
Ibsen, Nora is preparing a costume for a fancy dress ball at 
which she is to dance a tarantella. She makes a second at- 
tempt to persuade her husband to let Krogstad keep his place 
in the bank; but Helmer is obdurate and sends the letter of 
dismissal. Nora is about to appeal to Dr. Rank for money to 
make the last payment on the debt; but this last avenue of 
escape is closed to her when she discovers that Rank loves her. 
Krogstad arrives. He has received his dismissal. He will keep 
the forged note as a weapon. Helmer will be in his power. As 
he leaves, he drops his letter of accusation in the box. Mrs. 
Linden offers a ray of hope as she goes to try to persuade 
Krogstad to take the letter back unread. Helmer is going to 
open the box when Nora stops him by dancing the wild taran- 
tella. Whether the scene be called theatrical or dramatic, it 
is the last time that Ibsen employed such methods of the older 
form of drama calculated to arouse intense emotional excite- 
ment. 

The curtain of the third act rises upon Mrs. Linden and 
Krogstad. They loved each other in the past. She had mar- 
ried someone else for protection. Now she offers to return 
to him. In his happiness he is ready to recall his letter; but 
she insists that he leave it. Helmer and Nora must come to a 
complete understanding. As Krogstad exits, Ibsen’s last villain 
leaves his stage. Mrs. Linden is the goddess from the ma- 
chine for the plot, for Krogstad is to write another letter prom- 
ising not to blackmail Helmer. 

Dr. Rank then takes leave of Nora. He is going to die of 
an inherited disease. Ibsen could not allow the audience to 
conjecture that perhaps Nora would seek protection from a 
lover. Helmer opens the letter of denunciation. With mas- 
culine egoism he fails Nora in the crisis. He thinks of nothing 
but himself and his position. Then comes the second letter. 
The plot is solved. The whole problem is solved for Helmer. 
He is saved. Therefore he will protect Nora—now that she 
needs no protection from him. ‘Only open your heart to me, 


| 
) 
; 
| 
| 


— er 


EES 


IBSEN 579 


and I will be both will and conscience to you,” is his fatuous 
comment on the solution. The stage is set for a happy ending. 
There is some evidence that Ibsen first intended to have a scene 
of reconciliation. But the husband and wife sit down on op- 
posite sides of the table and the real tragedy begins. A new 
form of tragedy evolves from this scene in which Nora explains 
her position, her ideals, her whole feminine psychology in plain, 
direct language. The eight years of her married life have been 
spent with a stranger in a doll’s house. They cannot live to- 
gether until the miracle comes to pass that communion between 
them shall be a marriage. She leaves quietly. From below is 
heard the reverberation of a heavy door closing. 

The last scene makes the play a masterpiece of nineteenth- 
century drama. It caused a storm of protest. For its pro- 
duction, Ibsen preferred to tack on a happy ending than to 
leave the salving of wounded feelings to some bungling play- 
doctor. The American cinema version also performs the miracle 
before our eyes lest we should leave the motion picture house 
pondering over a problem. But the lesson has been learned 
from A Doll’s House that dramatic art does not consist in scenes 
like that of the tarantella but rather in searching the souls of 
men and women for the motives of their acts. The expression 
“obligatory scene” took on a new meaning when Helmer and 
Nora faced each other in the last act. It was no longer the 
keystone of a well-built plot, but the scene which presents the 
- basic idea of the whole play. This scene is the dramatization 
of Ibsen’s “Notes for the Modern Tragedy.” 

A Doll’s House, therefore, marked the parting of the ways be- 
tween the old and new drama of the nineteenth century. Ibsen 
had shown himself master of French craftsmanship. Up to the 
last scene, A Doll’s House is a well-made play. Each entrance 
and exit is perfectly timed, and produces a more or less striking 
turn of affairs. Letters and rings of the door bell arouse sus- 
pense. Strong contrasts of joy and despair, hope and fear are 
employed in the manner of Victor Hugo and other romanticists. 
The play can hold the interest of the unthinking spectator 


580 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


through its plot alone. But A Doll’s House is more than a 
perfect machine. It is a living organism. 

As if conscious of reaching the limits of the domain of the 
old drama, Ibsen said of his next play, Ghosts: “It may well be 
that the play is in several respects rather daring. But it seemed 
to me that the time had come for moving some boundary 
posts.” “My object,” the dramatist also said, “was to make 
the reader feel that he was going through a piece of real ex- 
perience.” No matter how fascinating the development of such 
plots as that of A Doll’s House may be, the spectator knows 
that such a succession of events, such striking contrasts, do not 
produce the effect of a real experience. 

Ghosts is a close-knit drama. The action takes place in one 
room and in a few hours; but the dramatic development is an 
analysis of the past much more than in A Doll’s House. “To 
marry for external reasons, even if they be religious or moral, 
brings Nemesis on the progeny.” Ghosts is the dramatization 
of this statement of Ibsen; and of the via crucis of the wife 
and mother involved in such a marriage. 

Ghosts recalls Gidipus Rex in the fact that Ibsen has chosen 
as a point of attack the moment when the past must be disclosed 
and when the modern Nemesis—heredity—is about to descend 
upon its victim. Yet there are fewer coups de thédtre and 
less suspense in Ghosts than in Gidipus Rex. The unveiling 
of the past in the Greek tragedy is an unveiling of events. In 
the modern tragedy, the unveiling of the past reveals the psy- 
chology of human beings, especially of Helen Alving. It re- 
veals the results of a marriage for external, social reasons. 

Helen had married Captain Alving because her mother and 
her two aunts proved to her clearly that it would be downright 
madness to refuse such an offer. He turned out to be an ut- 
terly dissolute man. She went to Pastor Manders and said: 
“Take me.” But he sent her back to her husband, to her path 
of duty, as he believed. A child, Oswald, was born to them. 
Alving also had a daughter, Regina, by one of the maids in the 
house. A few years later, he died. When the play opens, 


—— 


IBSEN 581 


Oswald, now a young artist, has returned home from Paris. 
Mrs. Alving has built an orphanage with her husband’s money 
—her purchase price. Pastor Manders has arrived to dedi- 
cate it. 

The first act is entirely retrospective. Not until the last 
minute is there an important incident in the present. Mrs. 
Alving tells Manders that from the day after tomorrow she 
will act in every way as though he who is dead had never lived 
in this house. “There shall be no one here but my boy and 
his mother.” 


(From the dining-room comes the noise of a chair overturned, 
and at the same moment is heard) 
REGINA (sharply, but in a whisper) 
Oswald! take care! are you mad? Let me go! 
Mrs. ALVING (starts-in terror) 
Ah—! | 
(She starts wildly towards the half-open door. Oswatp is heard 
laughing and humming. A bottle ts uncorked) 
MANDERS (agitated) 
What can be the matter? What is it, Mrs. Alving? 
Mrs. Atvine (hoarsely) 
Ghosts! The couple from the conservatory—trisen again! 
MANDERS 
Is it possible! Regina—? Is she—? 
Mrs. ALVING 
Yes. Come. Not a word—! 
(She seizes Pastor Manvers by the arm, and walks unsteadily 
towards the dining-room) 


The scene is strikingly dramatic. Ibsen did not give up entirely 
such moments of tenseness; but he employed them sparingly 
in his plays after A Doll’s House. ‘The scene is typical of his 
method. With strict economy of dialogue he advances the 
situation; but he also reveals the past at the same time. Indeed, 
the chief value of the scene lies in the fact that it paints a 
vivid picture of Alving’s relations with Regina’s mother, of all 


582 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


the tragedy of years gone by and points to the tragedy of heredity 
that is to come to pass in a few short hours. 

The second act is almost entirely retrospective. Oswald tells 
his pitiful, horrible story. He is the physical victim of his 
father’s excesses. Regina alone can bring him happiness. The 
act closes with the burning of the orphanage. 

The last act portrays the physical disintegration of Oswald. 
His mother does not oppose the union of Regina and Oswald; 
but after she has revealed their true relationship, Regina leaves. 
Oswald forces his mother to promise to take away the life she 
gave him when his impending mental breakdown occurs. The 
curtain falls upon Oswald demanding the sun. His heredity has 
overtaken him. His mother holds the morphia tablets in her 
hand and is staring at him in speechless horror. 

“The fault lies in that all mankind has failed,” said Ibsen of 
this play in his preliminary notes. No more depressing tragedy 
has ever been written. The remedy for the situation in A Doll’s 
House was a “miracle,” but even this tenuous hope was re- 
moved in Ghosts. The Russians, with their will to hope and 
their belief in a better future no matter how remote, are optimists 
in comparison with this stern Norwegian. This relentless picture 
of modern life, as he saw it, showed dramatists that the theatre 
was not merely a place in which to behold exciting heroics, senti- 
mental propaganda, or melodramatic events. 

Ibsen never ceased to exercise a certain amount of dramaturgic 
dexterity which he learned from the French school of dramatic 
art. He resembled the younger Dumas more than he would 
have wished to admit, for he had no admiration for the virtual 


creator of the problem play. In The League of Youth, the situa- — 


tion and effects are meretricious. In Pillars of Society, the dé- 
nouement is so carefully articulated that one is conscious of the 
technical devices which lead up to it. The first two acts of A 
Doll’s House are so full of antitheses, contrasts, unexpected but 
pat arrivals of personages that one still feels the skill of the 
dramatist in keeping up suspense. Too much of the plot depends 
upon the hour that events take place and on the time that let- 


| 


IBSEN 583 


ters are sent, received and read. Until the last scene, the plot 
is a very interesting element of the whole play, just because it 
is so beautifully manipulated. But never again did Ibsen allow 
his dramaturgic dexterity to overshadow for an instant his char- 
acters and his presentation of human problems. The only pos- 
sible exception would be Hedda Gabler. Yet the character of 
Hedda is so dominating that one cannot follow the ingenious 
development of the plot except in relation to this perverse fasci- 
nating woman who, in striving for power over a human being 
and in seeking for beauty at all costs, destroys Lovborg and 
herself. 

Events which are placed in the unchangeable past seem to be 
inevitable. Their revelation generally brings a peripeteia. When 
a dramatist is hammering home ideas, it is well for him not to 
have to spend time showing the physical causes of his problem 
or to have to consider the temporal sequence of incidents. He 
is not hampered by the question of showing when or where 
all these events came to pass. He can select a locality where 
they can be revealed at the time when he wishes to bring them to 
light. 

Therefore, Ibsen observed a relatively strict unity of place and 
of time. In many of his plays the scene does not change at all, 
and the action is completed within twenty-four hours. In John 
Gabriel Borkman the actual time of representation is longer 
than the ideal duration of the action. At the end of the first act 
we hear, from the room above, the strains of the Danse Macabre. 
When the curtain rises on the second act, the last bars are 
being played. 

- Although Ibsen helped to introduce the static drama, his whole 
scheme of playwriting kept his dramas in a close-knit form and 
shed an atmosphere of realism over them. These were piously 
imitated by his followers as essential elements of dramatic art. 
Nothing in the actual structure of his later dramas led to the 
disintegration of the well-made play. In structure and in spirit 
his earlier Peer Gynt with its veiled expressionism is closer to 
the drama of the present day than is any one of his later plays, 


584 THE DEVELOPMENT. OF DRAMATIC ART 


even including the obscurely symbolic When We Dead Awaken. 

The late point of attack, however, sometimes causes bewilder- 
ment on the part of the spectator. Rosmersholm is so introspec- 
tive that many scenes are not fully understood the first time 
that the play is seen. Ibsen makes every line and every action 
of his characters significant. No dramatist has ever equalled 
him in dramatic economy. 

Although he employed symbolism more and more in his later 
years, he was not seeking to veil his meaning after the manner 
of many modern playwrights. Yet the first scene of Rosmers- 
holm is baffling. Rebecca West and Madame Helseth are 
watching Rosmer out of the window. Will he cross the bridge 
over the mill-race—‘“a place where a thing like that happened.” 
No. He goes around it. “They cling to their dead here at 
Rosmersholm.” If they didn’t, there would be no White Horse. 
But the rector, “he goes straight over the foot bridge, he does. 
And yet she was his sister, his own flesh and blood.” When 
one sees the play a second time and knows that Rebecca West 
drove Beata, Rosmer’s wife, to commit suicide by leaping from 
this bridge, the scene contains a deep significance instead of an 
elusive mystery. Indeed, the whole drama, on second sight, 
produces a different effect, because the mysterious becomes clear 
and significant. Yet one would not wish to alter this master- 
piece of dramatic narration. As Mr. Archer said: “In unskilful 
hands this method might doubtless become very tedious; but 
when, as in Rosmersholm, every phase of the retrospect has a 
definite reaction upon the drama—the psychological process— 
actually passing on the stage, the effect attained is surely one of 
peculiar richness and depth. The drama of the past and the 
drama of the present are interwoven in such a complex yet clear 
and stately harmony as Ibsen himself has not often rivalled.” 

Though his plays are retrospective and tend towards the static 
form, they never give the effect of stagnating action. His open- 
ing scenes are quiet. Sometimes, as in A Doll’s House, they are 
peaceful for the purpose of contrast to the coming storm. Un- 
| obtrusively he gains our interest because he builds from the 


IBSEN 585 


very outset. In the art of preparation and foreshadowing he 
belongs to the older school of dramatists. He points to the 
course of the action and uses recurrent lines, such as the words 
of Hedda: “And then at ten o’clock—Eilert Lévborg will be 
here—with vine leaves in his hair.” For if at ten o’clock Lovborg 
does not come like an inspired Dionysus, tragedy will ensue. 
The third act opens at dawn the next day. The two women 
have waited for him in vain. One sometimes regrets that modern 
drama frowns upon significant lines of preparation, especially 
after listening to the skilful exposition and foreshadowing in 
Hedda Gabler, where every speech is a vivid revelation of char- 
acter or situation and leads one into the dramatic future, 
fraught with suspense. 

Hedda Gabler, through cowardice, gave up Ejilert Lovborg 
and married Tesman, who has nothing but a Ph.D. degree. Lov- 
borg, under the inspiration of Thea Elvsted, wrote an epoch- 
making book which would have brought him fame. Tesman, 
in the meantime, has been at work on what is known as a 
“scholarly article,’ dealing with the domestic industries of 
Brabant during the Middle Ages. When Hedda meets Lovborg 
again her old desire to mould a human destiny returns. She is 
jealous of Thea, whose flaxen hair she always wanted to pull, 
for the fragile Thea possessed the courage which the dashing 
daughter of General Gabler lacked, although she amuses herself 
with her father’s pistols. Hedda sends Lovborg to a drinking 
party. In the interval, marked by an entr’acte, he loses his 
precious manuscript and later visits a notorious Mademoiselle 
Diana and becomes involved with the police. 

Tesman has found the manuscript, and brings it to Hedda. 
When Lovborg appears and speaks of it as his child and Thea’s, 
Hedda gives him one of the pistols and tells him to use it now 
—and beautifully. He takes it; and, when he is gone, Hedda 
burns the manuscript. Loévborg has committed suicide, shooting 
himself not in the breast but in the bowels, as Hedda’s admirer, 
Judge Brack, informs her with cruel pleasure. Furthermore, 
Brack has recognized the pistol. Scandal will ensue if he speaks ; 


586 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


but if Madame Hedda is tractable, all will be well. Thea and 
Tesman have set to work to reconstruct the book from the 
notes. The former situation has recurred in a tragi-comic varia- 
tion. 

Hedda crosses to the table where Tesman and Thea are work- 
ing ; and, suppressing an involuntary smile, she imitates Tesman’s 
intonation. ‘Well? Are you getting on, George? Eh?” This 
vapid “Eh” sums up his character. Hedda passes her hands 
through Thea’s hair which always irritated her. 


HEDDA 
Doesn’t it seem strange to you, Thea? Here are you sitting 
with Tesman—just as you used to sit with Eilert Lovborg? 
Mrs. ELvstepD 
Ah, if I could only inspire your husband in the same way! 
HEDDA 
Oh, that will come too—in time. 
TESMAN 
Yes, do you know, Hedda—I really think I begin to feel some- 
thing of the sort. But won’t you go and sit with Brack again? 
HEDDA 
Is there nothing I can do to help you two? 
TESMAN 
Nothing, nothing in the world. I trust to you to keep Hedda 
company, my dear Brack. 
BRACK 
With the very greatest pleasure. 


Each line of this dialogue has a double significance. Beneath 
the superficial meaning, lies the revelation of the tragic situation. 

Ibsen now produces one of his contrasts. Hedda goes into 
another room and draws the curtains. Suddenly she is heard 
playing a wild dance on the piano. Tesman protests at dance 
music in moments of grief. She promises to be quiet. Tesman 
suggests that in the future Thea and he will work at his Aunt 
Julia’s house. Brack will entertain Hedda. They will get on 
capitally together. 


IBSEN 587 


Heppa (speaking loud and clear) 
Yes, don’t you flatter yourself we will, Judge Brack? Now that 
you are the one cock in the basket— 
(A shot is heard within. TrEsMAN, Mrs. Etvstep and Brack 
leap to their feet) 

TESMAN 
Oh, now she is playing with those pistols again. 


But this time, it is more than playing. She has shot herself 
with the one that remained when she sent Lévborg forth with 
the other. She used it “beautifully,” for Tesman shrieks: “Shot 
herself. Shot herself in the temple’; and he adds his usual 
vapid comment, grotesquely tragic at that moment: ‘Fancy 
that!” Then comes Brack’s recurrent phrase: “Good God!— 
people don’t do such things.” 

Whether such ingenious and skilful handling of tense moments 
is to disappear entirely from drama of the future only time 
can tell. The reaction against the well-made play has made 
us suspect that such technique is meretricious; but we must 
remember that there is a difference between the theatric employed 
to excite and the dramatic which convinces. Surely this dé- 
nouement is dramatic. 

Closing scenes of high tension with a surprising though logical 
peripeteia are typical of most of Ibsen’s plays. Even his last 
drama, When We Dead Awaken, rises to a final dramatic climax. 
Maia’s triumphant song of freedom is heard far down in the 
valley. Then “suddenly a sound like thunder is heard from 
high up on the snow-field, which glides and whirls downwards 
with headlong speed. Professor Rubek and Irene can be dimly 
discerned as they are whirled along with the masses of snow 
and buried in them.” 

The dénouements of Little Eyolf and of John Gabriel Bork- 
man are exceptions to his general practice and are examples 
of the quieter drama of the twentieth century such as Chekhov 
produced. Mr. Archer believed that the last scenes of these 
dramas resemble the choral odes and the mournful antiphones 


588 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


of Greek tragedy. Yet there is more than lamentation and 
lyricism in these scenes evoking the past. Rita and Allmers are 
doing more than “looking back over their shattered lives and 
playing chorus to their own tragedy.” ‘They are saving what is 
left from the wreckage and are going to build anew. Ella and 
Borkman are coming to a realization of things that were enigmas 
in the past. The peace which descends upon the people in these 
plays is not the peace of resignation to the inexorable will of the 
gods as in Greek drama. It is not the peace of defeat after 
a half-hearted battle, when nothing remains but the will to hope 
for a better future, centuries distant, as in Russian tragedies. 
It is the peace which comes from finally understanding the be- 
wildering past. Ibsen’s characters act until the end. Unlike 
the Russian and Greek heroes, they never cease thinking only 
to suffer patiently. There is psychological, dramatic progression 
until the curtain falls. I cannot, therefore, agree with Mr. 
Archer that in Ibsen “the poet definitely triumphs over the 
mere playwright,” in these dénouements. Ibsen’s scenes are 
never static in the sense that they merely induce an elegiac 
mood. The story of events may come to an end but the story of 
the souls of his characters continues to the last line. The specta- 
tor must do more than experience moods. He must think with 
Ibsen’s men and women, if he would get the full effect of the 
drama. Audiences had first worshiped in the theatre. When 
the religious element disappeared, they had been content to 
laugh or weep. Now they began to think. They wanted to 
listen to clear, detailed arguments and to use their reason. In 
the ultra-modern theatre, with its symbolism, expressionism and 
new stagecraft, the audience experiences sensations and receives 
impressions. 

Yet Ibsen was among the first to sow the seeds of the dein- 
tellectualization of dramatic art. Even before Verlaine was 
proclaiming that art is “beautiful eyes behind a veil,” that the 
elusive nuance is preferable to the clear color, Ibsen began to 
draw a veil over his precise meaning by the use of symbolism. 
There is not a line in A Doll’s House which is not clear. In 


IBSEN 589 


Ghosts there are one or two figures of speech which border on 
the symbolistic. After the orphanage has been destroyed by 
fire, Oswald says: “Everything will burn. All that recalls 
father’s memory is doomed. Here am I, too, burning down.” 
Hedda’s classic line: “And then—at ten o’clock—Eilert Lévborg 
will be here with vine leaves in his hair,” contains that balance 
of clarity and obscurity which stimulates the imagination. It 
is given strong emphasis by its position as the last line of the 
second act, and by the frequent recurrence of the idea. The 
sensitive auditor develops the image and the idea that are 
evoked beyond what the words state into what they may imply. 
He collaborates with the playwright in the process of creation. 
Subtle suggestion takes the place of clear statement. 

This method is not a new one for Ibsen at this period of 
his career. His earlier plays abound in symbolistic figures of 
speech. Peer Gynt especially, contains a hidden meaning which 
is more or less vaguely grasped rather than clearly understood. 
When Ibsen first turned to realism in his dramas, when the 
problem became of paramount importance in his scheme of play- 
writing, he sought for the clarity, logic and precision which 
naturally accompany a deterministic philosophy. His impres- 
. sionistic imagery gave way temporarily to exact pictures of life. 
His settings went indoors—into the four walls of ordinary houses. 
His dialogue, without being commonplace, became more con- 
crete. It was concise and incisive conversation such as people 
ought to carry on in the given circumstances but never do, 
because real life is not art. 

Then little by little, the rich imagination of the poet began 
to reassert itself and go hand in hand with the ideas of the 
realistic dramatist. Figures of speech half reveal a realm of 
phantasy which one seeks to penetrate as an initiate. Char- 
acters appear such as the Rat-Wife in Little Eyolf, Hilda and 
Solness in The Master Builder, which can be regarded either as 
symbols or real people. He uses symbolistic titles such as, 
The Wild Duck and The Lady from the Sea. It is not necessary 
to interpret any of his plays symbolically except When We Dead 


590 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Awaken. ‘There is a concrete explanation for all his characters 
and scenes. The Rat-Wife may be Death, may be Almer’s com- 
panion in the mountains, or may be simply a woman who rids 
houses of rats and mice. The element of the supernatural can 
be explained away in terms of the natural. 

Ibsen seems to have constructed his plays in several strata. 
On the exterior is the plot. A Doll’s House furnishes theatrical 
enjoyment in the unfolding of its story, charged with suspense, 
as completely as any melodramatic thriller. Even in his more 
static dramas, such as Ghosts, Little Eyolf, Rosmersholm, John 
Gabriel Borkman, there is enough story in the past and present 
to arouse interest in the fate of the characters. But beneath 
the theatrical enjoyment, lies our personal concern over Nora, 
Mrs. Alving, Rita and Almers, Rebecca and Rosmer, Borkman 
and the sisters who love him. We can look upon them as people 
like ourselves in special circumstances. A Doll’s House can be 
interpreted as the study of a woman. Or it can be studied as a 
dramatic presentation of “The Woman Question.” Finally, in 
his later plays, there is the sub-stratum of symbolism, which 
stimulates the imagination by subtle suggestion. Ibsen invites 
one to penetrate esoteric mysteries, but he never forces one, 
except, perchance, in When We Dead Awaken. 

Even The Wild Duck, which is highly symbolistic, can be 
followed as a concrete series of events proving that it is dan- 
gerous to destroy illusion and to substitute the devastating 
truth for the life-giving lie. Ibsen did not, and perchance could 
not, clearly explain exactly what he meant in certain passages. 
Weary of being interpreted he said at times: “Well, some com- 
mentator or other will come aiong and tell me what I really 
meant by that.” . 

It is not the business of the critic to interpret and explain this 
symbolism. Analysis is fatal to phantasy. There is a secret 
compact between each individual and the artist. The dramatist 
unlocks the gates and points the way. The spectator wanders 
where his imagination leads him in this realm of limitless fancy. 
If he goes astray, he and the artist should not indulge in mutual 


IBSEN 591 


recriminations, for the artist has purposely dulled the power 
of reason in order to give free play to the imagination. Once 
the dramatist has set the spectator free, the critical annotator 
must not impair this freedom by trying to superimpose his own 
interpretation, unless he would set himself above the creative 
artist and destroy the mutual compact between the artist and each 
individual. We share our methods of reasoning with minds of 
countless others. One’s imagination is peculiarly his own. What 
one thinks, others may think. What one imagines, no one else 
can imagine. 

Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House and Ghosts in order to convince 
every spectator of certain truths as he saw them. We may or 
may not agree with him, but we know what he meant. When 
he wrote When We Dead Awaken he invited collaboration with 
each of us singly. We cannot prove that we know what he 
meant ; but each of us is at liberty to build up his own interpreta- 
tion, which is essential to him and absolutely non-essential to 
everyone else. Whether some of the obscurity in this play be 
due to-Ibsen’s failing powers or not, When We Dead Awaken 
is the natural outcome of the trend towards the deintellectualiza- 
tion of dramatic art which began when symbolism commenced to 
replace clarity and precision in drama. 

Ibsen was fully conscious that he was introducing recondite 
meanings into his plays. He said of The Wild Duck: “In some 
ways this new play occupies a position by itself among my 
dramatic works; in its method it differs in several respects from 
my former ones. ...I hope that my critics will discover the 
points alluded to,—they will at any rate, find several things to 
squabble about and several things to interpret. I also think 
that The Wild Duck may very probably entice some of our 
young dramatists into new paths; and this I consider a result 
to be desired.” His prophecy and desire came true. The critics 
are still squabbling about the inner meaning of The Wild Duck. 
Younger dramatists, such as Maeterlinck, embraced the sym- 
bolistic method. And from Maeterlinck’s symbolism sprang 
Strindberg’s expressionism. 


592 THE DEVELOPMENT’ OF DRAMATIC ART 


Beginning as a romantic dramatist Ibsen passed through the 
Scribian school, became a relentless realist and ended as a 
symbolist. His career exemplifies the development of drama of 
the nineteenth century in Europe, whether he be imitating others, 
or striking out on new lines. He has been anathematized and 
worshiped. He cannot be dismissed. The English censor may 
keep Ghosts off the stage but that play of Ibsen’s, like all his 
others, is constantly played in other versions by other men. 
Dramatists of widely divergent ideals owe much to Ibsen directly 
or indirectly. The realist or the symbolist, the impressionist or 
the expressionist, the deft dramaturge or static dramatist can 
look to him for justification of their art. Brieux, Shaw, Maeter- 


linck, Werfel, Craig, Antoine, Reinhardt, Stanislavsky, D’An- 


nunzio, Benavente—and the list is scarcely begun—would differ 
as to what is dramatic art; but they could, and no doubt would 
drive home their arguments by illustrations drawn from the art 
of Henrik Ibsen. 


— 


Se 


ie 
—_ -) 


CHAPTER XX 
RUSSIAN DRAMA 


EFORE “realism” or “naturalism” became critical terms in 
other European countries, Gogol had founded the “Natural 
School” of Russian literature by writing his novel Dead Souls 
(1842). During the nineteenth century, Russian realism de- 
veloped first in the novel and then in drama to such a high 
degree of artistry that it became a strong factor in European 
literature. In the dramatic field the movement culminated in 
the Moscow Art Theatre. 

The theatre in Russia in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies had been under the domination of foreign ideas. Most 
of the comedies were founded on Moliére. Romanticism and 
classicism clashed in the theatre, with the victory going finally 
to the romanticists. Shakespeare replaced Racine and Voltaire 
as the model for playwrights. Scott’s novels furnished much 
material for plots. The strict censorship of the stage had hin- 
dered the development of originality. Nothing of international 
significance was produced. 

By the beginning of the nineteenth century the Russian middle 
classes had begun to attend the theatre; and the bourgeois 
dramas of Kotzebue, who lived in Russia, were translated and 
produced with success. As a result, a school of imitators, called 
“Kotzebuists,” arose to supply the demand for plays in which 
the virtuous side of family life was portrayed. These dramas 
cannot be correctly designated as realistic in the later meaning 
of the word. They contain too much sentimentality. There 
are too many mysterious persons who are apparently of the 
peasant class but turn out to be noblemen in disguise. Yet 
dramas portraying family life are always potentially realistic. 
In comparison with classical drama or with Pushkin’s romantic 

593 


594 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Boris Godunov, the bourgeois play seems to be a transcript of 
life. 

Griboyedov’s Intelligence Comes to Grief (1831) was the re- 
sult of a careful study of Moscow society in the early twenties. 
Although he was constantly hampered by the strict censorship, 
the author succeeded in attacking the weak points in Russian 
society. The dramatic action is sacrificed to long discourses 
and dialogues, as is often the case in later realistic plays. 

Gogol’s Revizor (Inspector-General) (1836) is both a mas- 
terpiece of technique and of realism. It is the dramatization 
of a situation suggested to Gogol by Pushkin. The latter had 
once been mistaken by the dignitaries of a town for an Inspector- 
General. Gogol expanded the incidents into a comedy of keen 
satire combined with farcical situations. Except for the five- 
act form and the opening of the second act by a monologue de- 
livered by a servant, there are no stereotyped elements in its 
construction. The plot is uninvolved and contains no real love 
episode. There is no hero nor heroine. The absence of a sympa- 
thetic hero, which was one of the criticisms directed at the play, 
is characteristic of the drama at the end of the century. This 
was one of the rdles to which Zola and his school strenuously 
objected. 

The characters are drawn from real life with careful observa- 
tion. Gogol’s notes on the characters and costumes are evidence 
of his naturalistic methods as a creative artist. He brings on 
the stage a whole Russian village and yet differentiates clearly 
all the numerous characters. His people are not mere types, 
but individuals, each possessing some personal, distinctive traits. 
To paint such a large gallery of portraits in the short time al- 
lowed a playwright to produce his effects shows a marvellous un- 
derstanding of dramatic economy. 

The dénouement of the comedy is especially noteworthy. The 
municipal dignitaries have mistaken a worthless young rascal, 


Khlestakov, as the Inspector-General. They are all grafters. 2 


One of them, at least, “steals more than his rank warrants.” 
All are quaking with guilty fear. Khlestakov has made the 


RUSSIAN DRAMA 595 


most of his gorgeous opportunity by borrowing money right 
and left and becoming engaged to the Governor’s gullible daugh- 
ter. When he has made his escape, his real identity is discovered 
by a letter which he has written to one of his friends. The 
postmaster has been instructed by the Governor to “open a 
little” all letters to see that they contained no incriminating ac- 
cusations against him. Mutual recriminations are being ex- 
changed by the duped gentlemen when a gendarme announces 
that the real Inspector-General has arrived! The curtain falls 
on a carefully devised pantomime and stage picture portraying 
the tragi-comic consternation of all. 

Aside from the dramatic effectiveness of this sudden peripeteia, 
the dénouement is strikingly realistic in its merciless humor. 
Here is no virtue rewarded. There is none to reward. The 
play leaves neither the impression of peacefulness of comedy nor 
of the loftiness of tragedy. The particular situation has been 
brought to a close. The ending is logical, pitilessly inexorable. 
But the imagination is so stirred by the news of the arrival of 
the Inspector-General, that the people in the play do not seem 
merely to be on the stage and to cease to exist when the curtain 
falls. Their life must continue. To make such vivid impressions 
of reality as opposed to theatricality is the aim of the naturalistic 
playwrights. Seldom has the aim been attained so completely 
as in this case. That Gogol was consciously striving for this 
effect of action continuing after the fall of the curtain is shown 
by the fact that the first act ends in the same general manner. 
The Governor’s wife and daughter are at the window talking 
to someone outside, and the wife “keeps on shouting and they 
both stand at the window until the curtain has fallen.” 

Unfortunately the /nspector-General remained an isolated mas- 
terpiece of realistic comedy on the Russian stage. It would not 
have been produced had not the Czar himself protected it from 
the censors. Gogol had many imitators; but they either lacked 
his skill or encountered the censorship to such an extent that 
Russian dramatists produced nothing of importance for many 
years. 


596 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


The repertory of the Moscow theatre consisted mainly of 
Gogol’s plays, Griboyedov’s satirical drama in a rather mutilated 
version, adaptations of French melodramas and vaudevilles, an 
occasional Shakespearean play, and the works of a few native 
Russians. As if in compensation for the dearth of first-class 
dramatists, the art of the actor developed to a high degree at 
Moscow. The declamatory style and the traditional manners 
and poses of the French were discarded. The actors sought to 
create each réle as a distinct entity, instead of playing it as if 
it belonged to a certain class of characters which were to be 
interpreted according to traditional conventions. Routine acting 
gave way to creative acting. Simplicity and naturalness took 
the place of over-refinement of histrionic art. The dramatist and 
actor strove to collaborate in the creation of every character. 
The Russian critic believed that the dramatist should rely on 
the actor to a great extent. Thus by the middle of the century 
the Russians were consciously working on the theory that drama, 
in its highest form, is a unified synthesis of all the arts it em- 
ploys, not a mere concatenation of playwright, actor and scene 
painter, each struggling to make his share in the production 
prominent even to the detriment of the whole. With such theories 
evolving, the time was not far off when the director would be 
called upon to harmonize all the many elements of each produc- 
tion. 

The development of a realistic school of acting is not sur- 
prising. Russian writers were primarily observers of life. They 
cared less for artistic form than did their Western neighbors. 
Their aim was to give a physical and spiritual picture of society 
rather than to tell a story for the story’s sake. M. J. Olgin says 
of the literature of this period: “We notice a preponderance of 
matter over form, of content over construction. As a rule, Rus- 
sian writers do not construct their works carefully. They are 
hardly concerned over a plot. They are not very fastidious as 
to the choice of expressions. What is their real interest and 
what gives their work a peculiar value is the palpitation of 
actual life, the soaring of the spirit, the sincerity of a human 


— 


ON ES a ea ee ee PS 


RUSSIAN DRAMA 597 


soul speaking directly and freely. Literary productions called 
by their authors a story or a novel are quite often neither the 
one nor the other. They are just a morsel of real life, an illuminat- 
ing episode, a study in human character, or a string of such 
episodes and studies loosely connected.” 

Both classical and romantic forms of drama were transplanted. 
There was nothing distinctly Russian in either kind. No na- 
tional traditions held the stage nor hindered its development. 
When the natural school of novelists had developed, the theatre 
was open to the realists without any battle. When Ostrovski 
began to produce his realistic dramas, he did not have to enter 
into competition with any tradition or even memory of a na- 
tional dramatic art. Turgeniev had already prepared the way 
for the transfer to the drama of the methods of the realistic 
novelist. 

His play A Month in the Country (1855) is a psychological 
study of a group of people who find themselves in a situation 
so similar in some respects to that of Balzac’s Mardire that 
direct influence is not improbable. Natalia Petrovna is the wife 
of a rich land-owner, Arkadi Islaev. She is in love with Rakitin; 
but, as she says to Rakitin: “You and I have a moral right to 
look not only into Arkadi’s face, but into the face of the whole 
world.” She finds herself strongly drawn to her son’s tutor, 
Bieliaev, who has but lately arrived. Viera Aleksandrovna, a 
young girl of seventeen, and a foundling, brought up by Islaev, 
also falls in love with Bieliaev. 

The play unfolds quietly as a psychological study of people 
who find themselves thus entangled. Each one tries to under- 
stand himself and tries to act the réle of an honorable person. 
There are no climaxes or scenes of theatrical tensity. The solu- 
tion of the problem comes when Rakitin and Bieliaev go away 
forever. In comparison with the whirring machinery of La 
Mardatre and its overdrawn characters, Turgeniev’s play is almost 
static. Throughout the whole work there is no trace of the usual 
devices of the well-made play. The technique of the Russian 
playwrights of the early twentieth century will scarcely differ 


598 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


from that employed by Turgeniev. A Month in the Country is 
a drama presenting a human problem in a manner that would 
still be called a novel in dialogue by those who believe that 
drama means action, although the sole requirement of drama 
is that it be acted. 

Ostrovski began his career as a playwright in 1846. His first 
plays, which were really only dramatic sketches, failed to get 
a hearing. The censor forbade the production of his first full 
length play, Jt’s a Family Affair—We'll Settle It Ourselves, until 
1861, although it was published in the Muscovite in 1850. In 
1853, however, his comedy, Keep Out of a Stranger’s Sleigh, 
was performed in Moscow, and from that time until his death 
in 1886 he was a dominant factor in the Russian drama and in 
the theatre, being the first Russian writer to devote his entire 
life to dramatic art as a profession. The important year in his 
career was 1859 when a volume of his plays was published and 
his masterpiece, The Storm, was produced with great success. 
It was during 1859 and 1860 that the critic Dobrolyubov analyzed 
the dramatic technique of Ostrovski in articles called The Realm 
of Darkness and A Ray of Light in the Realm of Darkness. The 
latter referred to The Storm. The Russians realized that they 
possessed the beginnings of a national school of dramatic art 
which was to develop brilliantly and become of great interna- 
tional significance. ; 

Ostrovski was an observer. He reproduced scenes of life with 
photographic exactness, especially those in the life of the Moscow 
merchants. His talent did not turn to dramas of intrigue. The 
well-made plot appeared on the Russian stage only in adapta- 
tions of foreign plays. The original situation in which his char- 
acters are found develops slowly; and, while the drama is not 
static, it does not unfold with surprising events nor in a manner 
that removes it to any degree from the way in which it would 
probably develop in real life. His scenes are rarely theatrically 
tense. Coups de thédtre are conspicuously absent. He does not 
employ finger-posts and foreshadowing in order to create sus- 
pense, but only to make his action proceed logically and to guide 


’ 
: 
| 


RUSSIAN DRAMA 599 


the spectator in his emotions and understanding. He does not 
rise to great climaxes, nor does he make his people debate prob- 
lems of life with forensic passion. 

His dénouements are usually quiet. Sometimes they are even 
purposely incomplete in order to give an effect of actuality. 
Thus at the end of A Protégée of the Mistress, Nadya will be 
forced to marry a worthless drunkard or else she will end her 
life in a pond. We do not know which event finally takes place. 
According to the usual theory of playwrights, to leave an audience 
in uncertainty as to the fate of a heroine is inartistic; but Os- 
trovski was not concerned with such details, although they would 
form the dramatic dénouement of most plays of this type. He 
aimed to present in this drama a series of episodes illustrating 
a phase of Russian life on an estate. Having fully depicted the 
tragedy of the situation, it makes little difference what happens 
to the heroine. 

Both plot and even character are of secondary importance in 
“dramas of life” as Dobrolyubov called these plays. His char- 
acters exist objectively for the spectator. He does not force us 
to take sides for or against them. Some are morally better than 
others. Some are more evil than others. Ostrovski does not 
present the sympathetic hero or the arch villain. In not creat- 
ing sympathetic characters he was following in the footsteps 
of Gogol. Even his antagonists do not arouse admiration as do 
the villains of romantic drama. They are only the products of 
their sordid surroundings. Glumov in Enough Stupidity in 
Every Wise Man describes himself as a kind of Iago. He says 
to his mother: “I am intelligent, crafty, envious: just like you. 
. . . How do people attain their ends? Not always through 
achievements, but oftener than not through a glib tongue. We 
like to talk here in Moscow. Is there any reason why I should 
not reach success in this spacious gossip shop? No! Ill gain 
the good will of the bigwigs, and I’ll become their protégé, you'll 
see! It’s silly to annoy them. We should flatter them to their 
heart’s content. There’s the whole secret of success!” 

Ostrovski does not proceed to show Glumov as a magnificently 


600 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


sinister Iago destroying innocent happiness of good men and 
women. He unfolds a picture of the satiric Glumov trying to 
get a wife and a fortune by flattering and tricking people who 
are perhaps no better than himself and are surely less intelligent. 
Glumov has diagnosed the malady of his social group correctly. 
He would have succeeded, had he not been stupid enough to lose 
his diary in which he wrote what he actually thought of his 
associates! When he is exposed, he retaliates by exposing their 
shallowness, their dependence upon him. 

Interest does not centre in the story which is told unobtru- 
sively, nor in the character of Glumov, but in the depiction of 
the shallow, sordid society in which he moves. No problem is 
discussed. No moral is taught. The characters are not mouth- 
pieces for the author. Ostrovski has been sharply criticized for 
not drawing moral conclusions ; but he was content to present life 
as he saw it, while, in France, Dumas was reasoning and preach- 
ing through his characters. Realism that preaches directly is 
very unreal. No one character is analyzed by Ostrovski for 
dramatic purposes. But many characters are presented. Each 
one has his idiosyncrasies; and Ostrovski was not afraid to 
spend time in allowing them to show these minor characteristics. 
He was criticized for not observing dramatic economy; but he 
knew that realism thrives on the representation of minor and 
commonplace details. His characters lend themselves to careful 
study and realistic interpretation by actors. They are not sub- 
tle, as Iago is subtle; but they need delicate interpretation by 
the actor in order to bring out their minor peculiarities. In- 
deed, the Russian actors have brought out in these réles certain 
characteristics which Ostrovski merely sketched. His realism is 
impressionistic, springs from within his characters and does not 
depend upon crude or brutal externalities, as the realism in 
Western Europe often does. 

Dobrolyubov said of Ostrovski’s Storm: “The need for jus- 
tice, for respect for personal rights, this is the cry .. . that 
rises up to the ear of every attentive reader. Well, can we deny 
the wide application of this need in Russia? Can we fail to see 


RUSSIAN DRAMA 601 


that such a dramatic background corresponds to the true condi- 
tion of Russian society? Take history, think of our life, look 
about you, everywhere you will find justification of our words. 
. . . Our history up to the most recent times has not fostered 
among us the development of a respect for equity, has not created 
any solid guaranties for personal rights, and has left a wide 
field to arbitrary tyranny and caprice.” The Storm is the drama- 
tization of these ideas, which form the basis of the whole work 
rather than merely serving as the dramatic background. The 
plot is the background. Into the situation, Ostrovski has woven 
many characters, all carefully differentiated; and one of them, 
Katerina, is minutely analyzed. As the plot is subservient to 
the characters, so plot and characters exist solely to present the 
theme as stated by Dobrolyubov. 

The story of the drama is almost trite when separated from 
the other elements of the play. Katerina and her husband are 
bullied by his mother. In the absence of her husband she gives 
herself to Boris, “a young man of good education’”—and nothing 
more. When the husband returns, Katerina, in a state of nervous 
excitement during a storm, confesses her sin. Boris is sent away. 
Her life is so miserable that she throws herself into the Volga. 

Boris and Katerina have only two scenes alone together during 
the play: one at the end of the third act and their scene of part- 
ing in the fifth act. Boris appears momentarily in the fourth 
act; but, while his presence is dramatic, no words are spoken 
between them. This situation involving unlawful love and mari- 
tal infidelity would have given rise to a. very different series 
of scenes in the hands of a contemporary French, German or 
English dramatist. Either a problem play or a semi-romantic 
tragedy would have evolved. Ostrovski does not emphasize 
either plot or the discussion of the problem of marriage. There- 
fore he has plenty of time to analyze his characters and to 
present his theme through their actions, personalities and con- 
versations, especially as the actual story of the play does not 
begin to unfold until towards the close of the third act. 

Taking complete advantage of the analytical method, Ostrovski 


602 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


created a group of characters who typify the tyranny, supersti- 
tion, idealism, sensitiveness, the spirit of revolt and the fatalistic 
passivity which existed in Russian life in that period. Certain 
minor personages have little if anything to do with the evolution 
of the plot, but are indispensable to the picture of the society 
represented. Feklusha, a female pilgrim, represents the religious 
superstition and ignorance. Kuligin is described as “a man of 
artisan class, a self-taught watchmaker, engaged in trying to 
discover the secret of perpetual motion.” He is the idealist, the 
dreamer who clashes with the brutal bully, Dikoy, a merchant. 
The importance of this episode is attested by the fact that 
Ostrovski reserves the scene until the fourth act. From the 
point of view of the plot, the scene is unnecessary and even ques- 
tionable at that moment; but, since the play is founded on a 
theme, the scene is obligatory and is staged at the correct 
moment. 

The analysis of the character of Katerina, the heroine, is re- 
markably complete. She is highly imaginative and supersensi- 
tive. Even as a child she was happy but highstrung, and given 
to religious ecstasy in which prayer and bursts of tears mingled. 
She has unfulfilled, vague desires, is subject to daydreams, 
visions, and has had sensations of flying like a bird. Now, be- 
cause of her mother-in-law’s unreasoning tyranny, her married 
life is complex. She feels caged. She is sorry for her husband, 
she wants him to protect her against herself; she wants to be 
loyal to him but her feelings for him go no farther. She is ob- 
sessed by the idea of death; but fears life more than death. She 
has a half-waking, recurrent dream of being held in a man’s 
arms. She tries not to admit that this man is Boris, but re- 
presses constantly, fearing sin. Her maternal instinct has been 
thwarted. Children, she feels, would have been her safeguard. 
In spite of her passivity and nervous fear, she revolts. To the 
Russians she is the spirit of revolt. When her husband is away 
temporarily, she gives herself to Boris—the young man of good 
education. Having revolted, she is unable to face the conse- 
quences, It is difficult to find such a minute keen analysis of 


ee ae ee TOE Ree eRe ev 


RUSSIAN DRAMA 603 


a woman in any play produced before 1860. Katerina does not 
exist primarily as a study of a dramatic character. She is entirely 
subservient to the theme; but diminution of the element of plot 
made such analysis of character possible in drama as well as in 
the novel in which the element of time is not a vital question. 

There are few scenes in the play which are dramatic in the 
sense of the word as it was used in the nineteenth century. The 
scene of confession, however, in the fourth act is handled in a 
very tense manner. A series of insignificant events and circum- 
stances so wring Katerina’s nerves that they snap. It is a 
’ case of conscience and a desire to lighten her soul by unburden- 
ing it with a confession; but it is also the result of a loss of self- 
control when she catches sight of Boris, when the old half- 
witted woman addresses her with words that seem to be a curse, 
when the storm breaks and the people are frightened, when she 
chances to look upon the half-effaced mural painting of the tor- 
tures of Hell. 

The scene of farewell between Boris and Katerina is a 
restrained moment of pathos and hopelessness expressed with 
artistic simplicity. The play would have been more tragic had 
Ostrovski let the curtain fall upon her at this moment instead 
of having her put an end to her troubles by suicide. Perhaps the 
dramatist felt that he could not use the quieter climax which he 
had employed in the Protégée of the Mistress, because The 
Storm was more than a mere piece of actualism and he had to 
round out the theme. 

Thus while other European theatres were perfecting the well- 
made play, Ostrovski was disregarding, when necessary, every 
canon of its constitution. He was anticipating the reaction 
against this form of drama. The Russian cares little for the 
ideal of art for art’s sake. He cares even less for the ideal of 
drama for the sake of clever technique. Ostrovski’s influence was 
not felt during his lifetime outside of Russia; but, whenever 
the effect of Chekhov, Gorky and the Moscow Art Theatre on 
the drama of the present is measured, it must be remembered that 
Ostrovski’s technique is the foundation of Russian dramatic art. 


604 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


Such plays lend themselves to indeed demand careful produc- 
tion. No plot and no single character is strong enough to in- 
sure success. Where so much depends upon atmosphere which 
is created by the portrayal of small significant facts, the whole 
production must be the result of unified acting, awkwardly 
called “ensemble.” The Russians were among the first to realize 
the importance of ensemble playing. In 1868 A. K. Tolstoi dis- 
cussed the question in an article entitled Project for the Pro- 
duction of the Tragedy Tsar Fedor Ivanovich. We described the 
spirit of the play and analyzed the architecture of the scenery, 
the coloring, the costumes and the characters as parts of a unified 
whole. Much of this unification was to be produced by en- 
semble acting or the careful relation of each role to every other 
rdle in the play with its proper emphasis. Thus the responsibility 


of every actor, whether star or supernumerary, was greatly in- — 


creased. The example of the Meiningen players strengthened 
the convictions of such Russians as Korch, who was one of the 
chief producers of Ostrovski during the last two decades of the 
nineteenth century. It was with Korch that Chekhov began his 
career as a playwright; and Chekhov became closely identified 
with the Moscow Art Theatre, founded about ten years later in 
1898. Finally, the Moscow Art Theatre has opened up to 
Europe Russian dramatic art, not only by the presentation of its 
own plays, but by stimulating interest in all forms of Russian 
drama. : 

The revolt against artificiality was 1ed by Stanislavsky and 
Nemirovitch-Danchenko who founded the Moscow Art Theatre. 
At first it resulted in their attempts to reform the methods of 
production rather than to introduce a new form of playwriting. 
The Russian plays of the first order were not machine-made. 
The Russian theatre only had to present the dramas of Ostrovski, 
Turgeniev or Tolstoi in a manner befitting their spirit and struc- 
ture in order to make a great stride in the direction of naturalism. 
But what kind of naturalism or realism did Stanislavsky and his 
colleagues set up as their ideal and in how far were they suc- 


. 
. 
| 
| 


RUSSIAN DRAMA 605 


cessful in attaining it? Their adverse critics assert that they 
sought and attained only the realism of external fact. 

The Moscow Art Theatre accepted the convention of the 
fourth wall in the proscenium arch and all that it implies. In its 
production of The Storm light was cast upon the stage in a 
manner to represent sunlight coming through windows in the 
imaginary fourth wall. Such a procedure is pure hokum and 
provocative of no artistic reaction. On the contrary, the sound 
of crickets in another play met with undeserved condemnation. 
The chirping was not introduced because crickets are heard in 
the country but in order to produce the sensation of loneliness 
of the country. The Moscow Art Theatre certainly held to the 
theory of realism and representation of life shorn of traditional 
theatricality; but Stanislavsky has stated his attitude towards 
the naturalism of external fact and has explained why the Mos- 
cow Art Theatre was sometimes misunderstood. “Like all revo- 
lutionists,” he says, “we broke with the old and exaggerated the 
new. All that was new was good simply because it was new. 
Those who think that we sought for naturalism on the stage are 
mistaken. We never leaned toward such a principle. Always, 
then as well as now, we sought for inner truth, for the truth of 
feeling and experience; but as spiritual technique was only in 
its embryo stage among actors of our company, we, because of 
necessity and helplessness, and against our desires, fell now and 
then into an outward and coarse naturalism.” (My Life in Art.) 

The realism of the Moscow Art Theatre during the first few 
years of its existence aimed to use external facts to reveal the 
inner truth. This ideal is very different from the realism which 
puts real trees on the stage in order to make the audience be- 
lieve they are in a forest. The scenery was not symbolic nor at 
all stylized. It aimed to represent the locality as it would ap- 
pear in real life. The actors acted as if they were real people. 
They sought to avoid the traditional theatricality which made 
the actor a poser and a declaimer; and they were unconscious 
of the new theatricality of the twentieth century which frankly 
admits that an actor is an actor. They sought to reproduce the 


606 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


halftones of life. They were finally to seek the overtones of 
symbolism. 

This organization found in Chekhov a playwright who was at- 
tuned to its theory of production. He had already become 
skilled as a story writer, in revealing the half-hidden phases of 
human life and emotion. He was untrammelled by any set of 


rules or traditions of playmaking. He distrusted his ability to 


become a dramatist. Indeed, many a critic denies him that 
appellation because his plays cannot be reduced to any of the 
old formulas of structure. 


His ideals as a dramatist have been summed up by Nemiro- 


vitch-Danchenko as follows: 


To free the stage from routine and literary stereotypes. 

To give back to the stage a living psychology and simple speech. 

To examine life not only through rising heights and falling 
abysses, but through the everyday life surrounding us. 

To seek theatricality of dramatic production not in exceptional 
staging, which has given over the theatre for many years to a 
special kind of masters and has turned away from it the contempo- 
rary literary talents, but in the hidden inner psychologic life. 

The art of Chekhov is the art of artistic freedom and artistic truth. 


It is often said that only the superb acting of this Russian com- 
pany can save his plays from failure. That is true; but it does 
not follow that Chekhov is not a dramatist. It proves that only 
_ these players have learned how to interpret his moods. His 
dramas on the printed page are far more lifeless than those of 
Scribe. When they are portrayed in the Moscow Art Theatre 
they live—not brilliantly nor even clearly—but like a vivid 
dream. 

One sometimes awakens from a dream with a feeling of long- 
ing or fear or sadness or despair. One tries to remember the 
subject, perhaps the plot of the dream and its characters. More 
or less vaguely the experience is recalled. It does not become 
clear, no matter how vivid the dream has been or how poignant 


RUSSIAN DRAMA 607 


the emotion may be. Yet for hours the mystic experience en- 
velops one and partially obscures reality. 

Thus it is when we have seen a Chekhovian play. The mystic 
emotion is very real, but it is difficult to analyze clearly in words 
the plot and the characters. To attempt to do so is as fatuous 
as trying to interpret a Russian symphony in the manner of 
well-meaning gentlemen who write program notes. In our own 
lives, there is the external reality, the plate-glass front, that one 
presents to the other plate-glass fronts. Behind the show win- 
dow is the real human being—a complex tissue of thoughts, 
dreams, moods, sensations, emotions, which he himself is in- 
capable of analyzing. There lie the ideas, motives, manifesta- 
tions of the will, velleities which arise from hidden or half- 
hidden sources. 

Thus in Chekhov’s plays there is the external reality in the 
scenery and in the actors. Then, in the words he gives his 
characters to speak, in the pauses of the dialogue, in the words 
left unspoken, he reveals, as no one would dare or even could 
reveal in real life, the inner lives of his people. All these things 
of which human beings are half conscious and which make us 
what we really are, appear as in a glass, darkly. . 

His dialogue is not flamboyantly brilliant or obtrusively in- 
cisive. He advised the playwright to avoid “choice diction.” 
The language should be simple and forceful. He employs Maeter- 
linckian silences and pauses in the dialogue with great effect. 
When he is purposely not entirely clear, he is never irritatingly 
obscure, because one does not feel that he is concealing philo- 
sophical thought in riddles as Strindberg does in To Damascus. 
In such passages, Chekhov is revealing the vague thoughts and 
sensations of his people. 

In general, his plays resemble those of Ostrovski and Turgeniev 
in structure. His art is unobtrusive. His tone is subdued. The 
scene in Uncle Vanya in which Voynitsky attempts to shoot Sere- 
bryakov is anomalous. The poignant moments of his later plays 
are restrained. He intensifies his situations gradually without 
striving to produce amazement or astonishment. Although his 


608 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


early Jvanov was written in climactic form, his later plays, such 
as The Cherry Orchard, do not build up to great climaxes. 

His characters are neither heroic nor trivial. “Modern play- 
wrights,” said Chekhov, “begin their plays with angels, scoundrels 
and clowns exclusively. Well, go seek these elements in all 
Russia! Yes, you may find them, but not in such extreme types 
as the playwrights need. Unwillingly, you begin forging them 
out of the mind and the imagination. You perspire and give the 
matter up. I wanted to be original. I did not portray a single 
villain, not a single angel (though I could not refrain when it 
came to the clown), did not accuse anyone or exculpate.” The 
will to act of Chekhov’s characters is weak; but their suffering 
therefrom is very human. Their will to hope is strong; and their 
resultant faith is almost divine. 

His point of departure is a theme. He seeks to present a 
phase of human suffering arising from the will to hope, to dream, 
but not to act or accomplish. At the end of his plays, all is lost 
except that someone like Nina in The Sea Gull has learned “to 
bear one’s cross and have faith”; or like Sonya in Uncle Vanya 
has learned to say: “We must go on living! We shall go on 
living, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through a long chain of days 
and weary evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials which 
fate sends us. . . . I have faith, I have faith.” | 

He said of playwrights in 1889: “The subject ought to be 
new but there need be no fable.” In other words, plot 
complication is unnecessary. He differs in that respect from 
Ibsen, his favorite author. The Norwegian dramatist always 
constructed a clear plot. His plays open at a climactic moment 
in the story. The scenario of A Doll’s House shows how Ibsen 
built his plays about events. Nora and Hedda go through a 
remarkable series of circumstances. No character of Chekhov’s 
could dream of such astounding things happening to one person 
in a whole lifetime. Chekhov’s scenario for the Demon of the 
Woods consists of a minute study of the characters and notes 
as to what they did in the past. It abounds in small, significant 
facts of their lives. That is the reason why his characters often 


RUSSIAN DRAMA 609 


seem to be indulging in monologues even in ensemble scenes. 
They are revealing their personalities by recounting incidents of 
their lives. They constantly “remember” petty actions and give 
bits_of their personal views. When Ibsen unveils the past, he 
develops the present action and reveals character. When Chekhov 
withdraws veils, he reveals character and creates the spiritual 
environment of his people. His plots, therefore, are often static 
for almost a whole act. The Cherry Orchard is particularly de- 
void of progressive action. The initial situation simply becomes 
more intense. The orchard is sold and its destruction begins as 
the play ends. This is symbolic—and turned out to be prophetic 
—of the disintegration of Old Russia. The plot is entirely with- 
out suspense. Yet the play is interesting on the stage because 
it reveals delicately and minutely the forces at work in this 
disintegration. 

Chekhov’s plays open at a moment when he can portray the 
circumstances which will lead his characters to their Garden of 
Gethsemane. The shadows have begun to fall, but the dark- 
ness is long in coming. Chekhov’s people struggle but little. We 
see them suffer a long time. Sometimes years pass and the 
situation changes only in intensity; and the change is gradual. 
Chekhov is so deliberate, so quiet in his development of the 
situation that he is said to have dramatized moods rather than 
plots. 

Treplev says in The Sea Gull, expressing, no doubt, Chekhov’s 
own views: “I come more and more to the conviction that it is 
not a question of old and new forms, but that what matters is 
that a man should write without thinking at all, write because 
it springs freely from his soul.” We cannot imagine Chekhov 
working with any formula. 

He has no thesis or problem to demonstrate. Hence, he does 
not stage obligatory scenes in which protagonist and antagonist 
directly debate the question as do Helmar and Nora in A Doll’s 
House. He has nothing to prove except that Russians of a cer- 
tain class act in a certain way in a certain situation. Thus his 
theme may be abstract, as in The Three Sisters, which is a study 


610 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


of wistful longing for something never attained. Chekhov said 
that exhaustion, feeling of guilt, boredom and loneliness are 
distinctly Russian characteristics, that “disappointment, apathy, 
nervous limpness and exhaustion are consequences of extreme 
excitability and such excitability is extremely characteristic of 
our young people.” His plays portray these forces operating 
in society. His scenes show his characters in these moods rather 
than causing things to happen. His people do not understand 
themselves as Cyrano, for instance, understands himself. They 
never finally learn the why and the wherefore as does Nora. 
His plays are portrayals of states of mind of characters and the 
particular state of mind of the dominant characters becomes the 
theme of the play. The scenes of the plot, which any other con- 
temporary European dramatist would have chosen for representa- 
tion, are often omitted by Chekhov; or they are presented with 
such quietness and reserve that they are branded as undramatic 
by those who believe that only plays with a noisy climax are 
dramatic. 

The Sea Gull deals with the fate of a young woman, Nina, who 
is deeply loved by Treplev. He is trying to become a sincere 
playwright. She is fascinated by Trigorin, an author who has 
already arrived, a man of shallow personality, the lover of Trep- 
lev’s mother. Not until the second act does one know what to 
look for when Trigorin says significantly: “A subject for a short 
story: a young girl, such as you, has lived all her life beside a 
lake; she loves the lake like a sea-gull and is as.free and happy 
as a sea-gull. But a man comes by chance, sees her, and having 
nothing better to do, destroys her, like that sea-gull here.” Nina 
is to be the sea gull that Trigorin destroys. Two acts have been 
devoted to giving impressions of character and circumstances. 

Between the second and third acts, Treplev tries to commit 
suicide. He wishes to challenge Trigorin to a duel. These 
facts, which the average dramatist would represent, are merely 
told in a most casual, unobtrusive manner. At the end of the 
third act, Nina is going to Moscow to try to become an actress. 
She promises to meet Trigorin there. The fourth act begins two 


RUSSIAN DRAMA 611 


years later and all the tragic events in that interval are com- 

municated in the following quiet dialogue: 

Dorn 

. . . How is she [Nina] getting on? 

TREPLEV 
I expect she is quite well. 

Dorn 
I was told that she was leading a rather peculiar life. How was 
that? 7 

TREPLEV © 
That’s a long story, doctor. 

Dorn 
Well, tell it us shortly (a pause). 

TREPLEV 
She ran away from home and had an affair with Trigorin. You 
know that? 

Dorn 
I know. 

TREPLEV 
She had a child. The child died. Trigorin got tired of her and 
went back to his old ties, as might have been expected. Though, 
indeed, he had never abandoned them, but in his weak-willed way 
contrived to keep them both going. As far as I can make out 
from what I have. heard, Nina’s private life was a complete 
failure. 

Dorn 
And the stage? 

TREPLEV 
I fancy that was worse still. She made her début at some holiday 
place near Moscow, then went to the provinces. All that time 
I did not lose sight of her, and wherever she went I followed 
hers ckvis 


This story would have served as the material for two acts 
of the usual play of the early twentieth century; but Chekhov 
was carrying on the disintegration of the play made up of vio- 


612 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


lent and highly colored climaxes. When he does come to the 
tragic moment, he usually combines it with some bit of every- 
day life. In the final scene of The Sea Gull, the whole family is 
gathered for tea and cards. Shamraev shows Trigorin the stuffed 
sea gull, symbolic of Nina. “I don’t remember,” says Trigorin. 
The sound of a shot is heard. (Konstantin Treplev has killed 
himself because of Nina whom Trigorin doesn’t remember.) 
Dorn leaves the room a moment. On his return he quiets Kon- 
stantin’s mother with a word. Then comes the following speech: 


Dorn (turning over the leaves of the magazine, to TRIGORIN) 
There was an article in this two months ago—a letter from 
America—and I wanted to ask you, among other things (puts 
his arm around TRicoRIN’s waist and leads him to the footlights) 
as I am very much interested in the question. (Jn a lower tone, 
dropping his voice.) Get Irina Nikolayevna away somehow. The 
fact is, Konstantin Gavrilitch has shot himself... . 


The curtain falls on this tragic situation, outwardly so calm. 
The scene is a combination of external realism, symbolism, the 
commonplace and the tragic that is difficult to equal. With 
amazing delicacy of touch and with few strokes he paints his 
final picture in which the whole drama is summed up and brought 
to an end. The closing minutes of Uncle Vanya, The Three Sis- 
ters and The Cherry Orchard are no less poignant and significant 
in their combined symbolism and realism so artistically 
restrained. | 

The entire collapse of the principles and formulas of play- 
writing, old as Aristotle, can finally be observed in Gorky’s Lower 
Depths produced by the Moscow Art Theatre in 1902. The 
title of the play is curiously significant. It seems to signify the 
ne plus ultra of naturalism and of formlessness in structure. 

In a squalid doss house about twenty characters of the under- 
world are gathered. There is no plot whatsoever. Certain events 
happen. A woman dies of tuberculosis. The landlord of this 
foul basement is killed in a fight. His wife accuses Vaska, her 


RUSSIAN DRAMA 613 


paramour, of the murder because he is forsaking her for her 
younger sister. Vaska in turn throws the guilt upon the wife. 
They are being arraigned in court when the play ends with 
the suicide of the actor. The outcome of the trial is never 
disclosed. The events do not even constitute a connected 
story, much less a plot. They are not introduced for the 
purpose of depicting the characters, for the characters do 
not change because of them. The personalities would have been 
just as clearly revealed if none of these things had happened. 
They serve the purpose of giving the spectator the sensation of 
“the lower depths,” for the main effect of the play is that one 
has experienced that phase of society. The character of 
Luka, the philosophical pilgrim, serves the same purpose. He 
comes into this den. He shows us that these people are not 
beasts but human beings with longing hopes that go unfulfilled. 
“We are all human beings,” he says; but had he never come into 
their lives neither they nor we would have known how human 
they really are. Whether his philosophy of life—that things 
exist only if we believe in them—is true or false, whether Gorky 
was cynical or idealistic in his depiction of the influence of this 
philosophy is of little importance. The effect of the whole play 
is not sordid or vile; but one is left with the distinct sensation 
of having penetrated the physical and emotional lives of people 
such as one merely sees in slums and reads of in reports from 
minor police courts. One feels The Lower Depths. 

“Tt is not drama,” cried many critics in protest; and they 
proved to their own satisfaction that the play broke with all 
formulas and laws of dramatic art. Yet the play has impressed 
thousands of spectators as a true picture of that phase of life. 
Here is no sickening sentimentality, no criminal little Eva ascend- 
ing the heavenly ladder of the social scale, no heroics, no in- 
quiry into causes, no placing of blame on society, none of the 
usual elements which make ‘crook plays” outrageous falsifica- 
tions of life, no matter how dramatic they may be. 

The Lower Depths is static because the lower depths are 
static. People who fall into them do not rise from them physi- 


614 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


cally or mentally. Regeneration is a miracle. Gorky was not 
trying to dramatize an improbable possibility. Life is sometimes 
dramatic. Generally it is undramatic. Is the theatre to be 
closed to a presentation of life as it usually is? Is a dramatist 
to relinquish to the novelist the presentation of static situations 
and people who are not consciously manifesting their will? Is 
it true, as Brunetiére said, that such people as Gil Blas cannot 
be portrayed as central characters in a play? There is nothing 
in dramatic art which forces it to relinquish to the novelist any 
portion of human life and truth. The fact that it may have done 
so is no proof that it must continue to do so. Drama is a rep- 
resentation of life by actors. There is no law, no limitation, save 
the limitations of the human beings who produce the repre- 
sentation. : 


CHAPTER XXI 
SYNTHETIC DRAMATIC ART. THE NEW STAGECRAFT 


HE Greeks realized that drama is a synthesis of all the 

arts. Aristotle defined the synthesis when he said that 
“every tragedy must have six parts which determine its quality 
—namely plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle and song.” 
Plot was to him the soul of a tragedy. Character was of sec- 
ondary importance. Spectacle was the least important ele- 
ment, ‘because spectacular effects depend more on the art of the 
stage machinist than on that of the poet.” 

After the Renaissance, the Aristotelian theory and the prac- 
tice of the dramatists tended to bring forth the well-made play. 
The Greeks had been such consummate artists in this respect 
and Aristotle had analyzed and exalted this form of drama to 
such an extent that the spectacular and musical elements were 
entirely overshadowed. Dramatic criticism dealt mainly with 
plot and character. Indeed, character became the crux of 
dramatic art. Plot assumed a position of secondary impor- 
tance. A play was considered a masterpiece only if it contained 
deep analysis of character. During the nineteenth century the 
playwright dominated the stage. With the dawn of the twen- 
tieth century the director became the vital factor in the theatre. 

The court players of the Duke of Meiningen were a factor 
in the development of synthetic drama. Their patron had seen 
Kean’s gorgeous production of Shakespeare in London and was 
deeply impressed by the processional scenes and the mob scenes. 
Bodenstedt had also attended these performances in 1859, and 
he became director of the Meininger in 1865. ‘The strong finan- 
cial position of this troupe enabled it to mount plays with great 
care and beauty. They developed what is known as ensemble 
playing. This expression applies primarily to the handling of 

hee 4 


616 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


crowds and mass effects of human beings on the stage. No 
matter how great was the reputation of any actor, he could be 
called upon to play a réle generally assigned to untrained, awk- 
ward supernumeraries. Shakespeare’s and Schiller’s dramas 
offered the finest opportunities for ensemble scenes; but in later 
years when the troupe was touring Europe (1874-1890), under 
the direction of Chronegk, they produced modern plays by 
Ibsen, Bjornson, Echegaray, etc. The Russians were especially 
impressed by this communistic spirit in drama, and the Russian 
theatre of the present day owes much to the ideals of the Mein- 
inger. Antoine saw them in Belgium in 1888 and realized that 
their grouping in ensemble scenes produced an extraordinary 
illusion of truth. He praised their light effects, costumes and 
scenery with some reservation. 

Mass effects of human beings in the theatre may be handled 
in general in two ways. The Greek chorus is a unit. It speaks 
and dances in unison even though it may be divided into semi- 
choruses. The Shakespearean mob is a collection of individ- 
uals who speak and act as separate units. They are actual 
people in the drama whereas the Greek chorus may become 
practically impalpable, invisible spectators and interpreters of 
the drama for the actual audience. Both methods may be com- 
bined as in the modern production of Carmencita and the Soldier 
by the Moscow Art Theatre Musical Studio. The figurants on 
the stage proper are individuals in the drama. Those who are 
on the steps and archways above the stage are invisible to the 
persons in the play but reflect by poses and songs the thoughts 
and emotions of the characters below. Their function is not 
only to explain but also to guide the emotions of the spectators 
as did the Greek chorus. In any case, the crowd, if properly 
handled in relation to the basic idea of the play, becomes not 
merely a transference of reality to the stage but an integral 
part of the work of art. By dissolving pictures and by articu- 
late sounds it helps to create the inner meaning of the play and 
becomes expressionistic. 

The Meininger showed by example the value of ensemble play- 


SYNTHETIC DRAMATIC ART 617 


ing, and, because they extended the spirit of ensemble to light 
effects and costume, they helped to re-create the ideals of 
synthesis and expressionism in dramatic art. They made it pos- 
sible to produce such plays as Hauptmann’s Weavers with great 
effectiveness. They showed that drama does not merely con- 
sist of a single character played by a “star” in the centre of the 
stage in front of blazing footlights; but that drama can be 
the gorgeous, emotional presentation of masses of men and can 
reflect large pictures of human life within the four walls of a 
building. The effects of which Schiller dreamed have now 
been realized. 

The first modern artist to foresee the development which 
dramatic art was to undergo was Richard Wagner. He re- 
stated the theory of synthesis. “The highest conjoint work of 
art,’ he wrote in 1840, “is the Drama: it can only be at hand 
in all its possible fulness, when in it each separate branch 
of art is at hand in its utmost fulness. The true is only con- 
ceivable as proceeding from a common urgence of every art 
towards the most direct appeal to a common public. In this 
Drama, each separate art can only bare its utmost secret to 
their common public through a mutual parleying with other 
arts; for the purpose of each separate branch of art can only 
be fully attained by the reciprocal agreement and co-operation 
of all the branches in their common message.” (Das Kunstwerk 
der Zukunft.) 

This is the Greek conception of dramatic art, but one which 
had ceased to exist, partially because of the influence of Aris- 
totle’s insistence upon plot and character. This conception has 
become the basis of modern drama which calls upon all the 
arts in order to make a complete artistic effect. 

Wagner was chiefly concerned with the revival of the musical 
element in drama, for he correctly held that opera of his day 
was scarcely drama. The music did not express the dramatic 
idea. The music of one opera was just as fitting or really un- 
fitting for any other. An aria from Rigoletto could be trans- 
ferred to Traviata or to Mignon without violating any artistic 


618 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


principle. Wagner made music the essential expression of each 
particular scene in his operas. He was also interested in the 
spectacular element furnished by the fine arts and the group- 
ings of the actors. Scenery had been employed only for the 
purpose of creating illusion. It was a representation of the 
place of the action, whether gorgeous or drab. Wagner foresaw 
a more effective use of the: plastic arts. They could create 
not only beauty but truth. He showed how each art can be 
employed in connection with the others to bring out the essen- 
tial meaning of the drama. He said: ‘Thus the illusion of plas- 
tic art will turn to truth in drama: the plastic artist will reach 
out hands to the dancer, to the mime, will lose himself in them 
and thus become both mime and dancer. So far as lies within 
his power, he will have to impart the inner man, his feeling 
and his willing to the eye.” 

That is Wagner’s prophecy of stylization through synthesis. 
The plastic arts were for the first time put upon a plane with > 
the work of the dramatist. Wagner also made a prophetic state- 
ment in regard to lighting, before the discovery of the electric 
light. In speaking of the scene-painter, he said: “The illusion 
which his brush and finest blend of colors could only hint at, 
could only distantly approach, he will here bring to its con- 
summation by artistic practice of every known device, by use 
of all the art of lighting.” 

Wagner would scarcely have been content to make the play- 
wright and the musical composer subservient to the director ; 
but he advocated allowing the director to control all other ele- 
ments of synthesis. Thus both in theory and practice, Wagner 
was bringing forth a modern conception of drama which insists 
upon stylization and an harmonious synthesis of all the arts 
in which each art creates through its own medium artistic truth 
and beauty. Mere illusion is the work of a machinist. Truth 
and beauty are the work of an artist whether he employs 
musical instruments, colored lights, painted canvas, or the spoken 
word and movement to attain his end. 

In the modern synthesis, special attention has been paid to 


THE NEW STAGECRAFT 619 


the use of the plastic arts which include in the theatre, color, 
light and shade as produced by lighting and the grouping and 
posing of human beings. Indeed the term “plastic arts” takes on 
a deep significance when applied to dramatic art. The theatre 
presents a living picture. As Appia said: “The mise-en-scéne is 
a picture composed in time.” Drama is the only living art. 
It possesses all the advantages and disadvantages of life. The 
fine arts are not plastic in the sense that drama is. A painting, a 
piece of sculpture or of architecture is frozen, unchangeable 
once it is completed. It exists until forces of nature or of man 
destroy it. Drama exists only while it is being produced by 
human agency. Though we may apply the term “static” to 
plots of certain plays, the play itself is never static. Something 
in it changes, develops every instant. It quivers with life until 
the final curtain. Then it exists only in memory, like a human 
being that has lived and died. 

The problem of setting a play has many ramifications. The 
production can be actual or ideal. Many people, endowed with 
a certain kind of imaginative power, read a drama and imagine 
the action as taking place in the same manner that it would 
happen in real life. That we may call the ideal production. 
It is entirely divorced from the theatre. Macbeth is really on 
the blasted heath. Clytemnestra is in front of a Greek palace. 
Cyrano is in the old Hétel de Bourgogne. Lear is buffeted by a 
real storm. Everything is as it was; but everything is imaginary. 

The actual production is on a stage, in theatrical conditions. 
It may be wholly imagined by the reader of a play or it may 
be the real representation. The theatre is primarily concerned 
only with the actual production real or imagined; but the 
theatre must reckon with the realm of phantasy in which the 
ideal production is made. The theatre is all pretense. Other 
arts are only partially pretense, with the exception of music 
which need not pretend to be anything which it is not. A 
painting does not pretend to be the actual object represented. 
Michelangelo’s statue of David does not pretend to be David; 
but the actor pretends to be Macbeth. The question is: How 


620 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


far can the setting pretend to be the actual place in which Mac- 
beth is? Of one thing we are sure: the actual place is some- 
where else. Thus the setting, whether realistic, symbolic, ex- 
pressionistic, archeological or the back wall of the playhouse, 
is pretense. In the last analysis the theatre must reckon with 
illusion. But what kind of illusion? Illusion of reality or il- 
lusion of phantasy or illusion of inner truth? 

Looking back over the development of stage decoration one 
is impressed by the fact that the setting has been in harmony 
with the form of drama for which it was devised; but when 
plays originally produced with certain fitting scenery are later 
played before scenery conforming to new ideals, the results 
are unsatisfactory. The architectural background of the Greek 
theatre was a dignified setting for Greek drama. It expressed 
the spirit of the play. The plastic evolutions of the chorus 
must have been effective against the stately wall pierced with 
massive doors leading to a mysterious realm of phantasy. The 
medieval drama, produced within a church, was in the correct 
symbolic environment. When played on the parvis in front of 
a cathedral, the gothic structure was in complete harmony with | 
the play. The Elizabethan stage was well suited to the tech- 
nique employed by Shakespeare; but, while it formed an un- 
obtrusive background, it did not express the inner spirit of his 
plays. The multiple system of stage decoration employed in 
French theatres was an inheritance from medieval drama in which 
symbolism had given way to realism. The system actually 
broke down when stricter methods of realism were employed. 
The painted back drop with its inartistic perspective originated 
in Italy and in the seventeenth century was employed both in 
England and in France. Designed to give the illusion of real- 
ity, it destroyed the illusion as soon as an actor appeared on 
the stage. In the eighteenth century, the scenery for opera 
was aiming to produce amazing and gorgeous spectacles. The 
spectacular element began to creep into the setting of drama 
without music. De Loutherbourg, in England, produced back 
drops of pictorial effectiveness, but they were really gigantic 


THE NEW STAGECRAFT 621 


oil paintings. The romantic drama in France sought for set- 
tings full of atmosphere and local color. 

About 1852 Kean began to mount Shakespeare’s plays in Eng- 
land with historical exactness. In Germany, about 1840, Tieck 
and Immermann designed a modified Elizabethan setting for 
Shakespearean productions. These two methods are diamet- 
rically opposed. Kean’s aim was to reproduce exactly the setting 
of the place of action. Tieck insisted upon playing Shakespeare 
in conditions resembling those in which his plays were orig- 
inally produced. Neither one is satisfactory. Shakespeare’s 
plays were not composed for scenery of historical realism. They 
- belong to the realm of phantasy in that respect. A production 
of his dramas in exact or modified Elizabethan surroundings 
makes an archeological impression upon an audience. Nothing 
is farther removed from art than archeology. With the age of 
realism in drama, came scenery still more realistic. Interiors 
of rooms were made exact replicas of the rooms in which the 
action was supposed to take place. Antoine, Belasco and Stan- 
islavsky tried to have all properties the actual objects which 
would have been employed in real life. For his production of 
Old Heidelberg, Antoine transported to the Paris stage the fur- 
nishings of a student’s room in Heidelberg. Trees made of cork 
in such a manner as to deceive a woodpecker were placed upon 
the stage. Even real saplings were given the impossible task 
of representing themselves artistically. Lighting, which had 
served as illumination, now was employed to create realistic 
illusion, to copy nature. The revolving stage, the wagon stage, 
the elevator stage, the sliding stage were invented. The plaster 
dome, the canvas cyclorama were set up. The realist had done 
his worst. The machinist had done his best. The drama 
awaited a creative artist. 

The German critic, A. W. Schlegel, had pointed out the errors 
of stage decoration at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
“The errors which may be avoided are want of simplicity and 
of great reposeful masses; the overloading of the scene with 
superfluous and distracting objects, either because the painter 


622 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


is desirous of showing off his strength in perspective or because 
he does not know how otherwise to fill up the space; an archi- 
tecture full of mannerism, often altogether unconnected, nay, 
even at variance with possibility, colored in a motley manner 
which resembles no species of stone in the world.” In 1880 
Feuerbach, not a man of the theatre but a painter, sounded 
clearly the note of the future ideal of stagecraft when he said: 
“Unobtrusive suggestion is what is needed, not bewildering ef- 
fects.” For once in the history of dramatic art, theory was 
preceding practice. 

The next important contribution to the theory of the new 
stagecraft was made by Appia in Die Musik und die Inscenie- 
rung (1899). He developed Wagner’s theories of the synthetic 
theatre in relation to scenery, lighting and the actor. The 
lighting harmonizes the setting and actor. 

Appia found a two-dimensional stage decorated with two- 
dimensional paintings serving as back drops. In this area a three- 
dimensional living actor moved about in front of a dead setting. 
The whole inharmonious combination was illuminated by a 
lighting system that was crude and often cast meaningless and — 
disturbing shadows. He insisted that false perspective must 
go; that the stage must make use of the dimension of height; 
that no matter where the actor walked the setting must retain 
its true proportion ; that everything on the stage must be in three 
dimensions. 

The painted back drop gave way to simple mass effects which 
were bathed in light and shadow, in harmony with the devel- 
oping action of the play. Thus in speaking of the forest scene 
in Wagner’s Siegfried, he says: “We must no longer try to create 
the illusion of a forest; but instead the illusion of a man in the 
atmosphere of a forest. When the forest trees, stirred by the 
breeze, attract the attention of Siegfried, we, the spectators, 
should see Siegfried bathed in the moving lights and shadows, 
and not the movement of rags of canvas agitated by stage 
tricks. The scenic illusion lies in the living presence of the 
actor.”’ | 


THE NEW STAGECRAFT 623 


The light that plays upon the scenes is dynamic. It is an in- 
tegral part of the drama. In the last act of Tristan und Isolde 
the light, no less than the music, must accompany the action. 
Appia tells exactly what the light should be and where shad- 
ows must fall. As the curtain rises Tristan lies in the shadow. 
He is dying. The sunlight, becoming more and more golden, 
filters through the branches of a great tree and strikes the ground 
near his feet. Then slowly, it begins to flow over his body, 
until, when Isolde comes to him, it sheds its radiance over both 
of them. As the Liebestod is sung, the golden light has passed 
beyond the dead Tristan. “The light fades little by little, until 
the scene is enveloped in a darkening twilight. The curtain 
falls on a calm, peaceful picture, of uniform tone, where the 
eye distinguishes only the last reflection of the sunset playing 
softly over the white form of Isolde.” Stage setting was trans- 
formed by Appia from a means of illusion into a means of ex- 
pression. 

In his epoch-making book entitled The Art of the Theatre 
(1905), Gordon Craig delivered a body blow against the aca- 
demic, bookish theories of drama. Eleven years before, 
Brunetiére had promulgated his “law of the drama,’ and by 
1905 it had become the basis of dramatic criticism. But Craig 
was interested in the living drama in the theatre, not merely 
in the play. ‘The art of the theatre is neither acting nor the 
play, nor the dance; but it consists of all the elements of which 
these things are composed: action which is the very spirit of 
acting; words which are the body of the play; line and color, 
which are the very heart of the scene; rhythm, which is the 
very essence of dance.” Such is Craig’s description of the Greek 
synthesis; but, unlike Aristotle, Craig expressly denied that one 
element was more important than the other. The literary and 
academic world greeted this theory of dramatic art as heresy 
which smelled of grease-paint, and turned up its offended nose 
as high as its brow. To realize that Aristotle placed plot above 
character was disconcerting; but at least the Greek critic had 
placed spectacle last. Now to find that the play itself was held 


624 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


aS no more important than spectacle, that was too fantastic. 
Besides, Craig could have his art of the theatre. Cultured gen- 
tlemen and scholars, cultured and uncultured, were content with 
their dramatic literature—whatever that may be. 

In order to produce this new art—new because it must be a 
synthesis—Craig dreams of a master mind capable of creating 
and directing every element. In the meantime, the theatre has 
had to be content with one man who can synthesize and har- 
monize the different arts. Although he may not actually write 
or act the play, or design the scenery and costumes, the di- 
rector has assumed almost supreme authority in the creation 
of dramatic art. The scenic artist, the actor, even the dramatist 
must bow to his will, for, as Craig has said, “it is impossible for 
a work of art ever to be produced where more than one brain 
is permitted to direct.” It is even more impossible when sey- 
eral brains work independently. The dramatist can tell what 
effect he wants to make, but he is rarely able to produce that 
effect when called upon to direct a production of his play. 
Dramatic art still awaits its “poet” or creator; and it will never 
attain perfection until such a creative genius appears. But some 
day the super-Wagner will be born. 

Craig’s influence on dramatic art has been most potent in 
regard to spectacle. After Appia and Craig, we can surely em- 
ploy the word spectacle in a new sense meaning that part of 
a drama which produces legitimate and artistic effect upon the 
human mind through the eye. Color, form, light and shadow, 
all in movement, are found to have deep significance. Craig 
taught us to give up the vain search for perspective of depth 
and to substitute perspective of height towering to infinity. He 
made the pictorial back drop ridiculous. He showed us that it 
is possible to paint with light in color and in intensity befitting 
the moving action of the play. His light “travels.” It is dy- 
namic. It “caresses or cuts.” 

He fights realism valiantly and has won so many supporters 
that the old minotaur is gasping, if not dead. In choosing col- 
ors for a scene he would not look first at nature but in the play 


THE NEW STAGECRAFT 625 


of the poet. Even that is not enough. “I let my scenes grow 
out of not merely the play, but from broad sweeps of thought 
which the play has conjured up in me, or even other plays by 
the same author have conjured up.” Hamlet seems to him to 
be a lonely man in a dark place. Hence the setting must sug- 
gest this inner meaning of the play. In this conception of 
Hamlet, Craig may be right or wrong; but his method is ar- 
tistically sound. 

In every possible way he seeks to express the inner spirit of 
the drama unobtrusively. He stimulates the imagination 
through the senses, while the realist killed the imagination by 
the presentation of the actual thing or a deceiving replica. “By 
means of suggestion,” Craig holds, “you may bring on the stage 
a sense of all things—the rain, the sun, the wind, the snow, the 
hail, the intense heat—but you will never bring them there by 
attempting to wrestle and close with Nature in order so that 
you may seize some of her treasure and lay it before the eyes 
of the multitude. By means of suggestion in movement you may 
translate all passions and the thoughts of vast numbers of 
people, or by means of the same you can assist your actor to 
convey the thought and the emotions of the particular character 
he impersonates. Actuality, accuracy of detail, is useless upon 
the stage.” 

Appia and Craig are the prophets of the new art of drama. 
Lest anyone object that the art is not new, let us immediately 
admit that it is as old as Greek tragedy. But through the in- 
fluence of the tragedies and of Aristotle’s commentaries, we 
erected the theory of the unity of action into the supreme law. 
It was broadened and narrowed by turns; but no one dared 
to leave it out of consideration. Now a new unity or rather 
the old unity of the Greek drama is set up as the ideal. By a 
synthesis of all the arts the spiritual meaning of the drama is 
brought out. To this process the term “style” or “stylization” 
may be applied. We have re-discovered that drama is not 
words; that, with all its limitations, it is limitless in its in- 
finite variety. When the creative dramatic artist finds that 


626 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


one of the component arts is failing to produce the desired ef- 
feot, he brings into play another art to supplement or to sub- 
stitute for the one which, because of its very nature, is found 
wanting at that particular moment. The supreme test of a 
drama is based upon the question as to whether all the arts 
employed have been used in a manner to evoke completely the 
inner meaning of the drama. 

The theatre of the twentieth century is constantly being torn 
down and rebuilt. It is seething with experiments, with new 
syntheses. The proscenium arch, footlights, cloth cycloramas, 
plaster domes, constructivist scenery, architectural scenery, the 
mingling of actors and audience, improvisation like the com- 
media dell’ arte, stages painted with oils, stages painted with 
light, stages painted with colored cloth, sets on different levels, 
steps, and more steps, ladders, machines for effects, machines 
for setting, silhouettes, bas-reliefs, two dimensions, three dimen- 
sions, all this and more goes and comes in countless variations. 
Plays of all ages are produced in as many different “styles” as 
there are directors. Phédre and Macbeth are given cubistic 
scenery. 

In Craig’s production of Hamlet at the Moscow Art Theatre 
certain scenes were staged in a monodramatic manner so that 
the audience saw the place and the characters as Hamlet saw 
them in his tortured mind. Stanislavsky has described in My 
Life in Art one of the scenes as follows: “The King and the 
Queen sat on a high throne in golden and brocaded costumes, 
among the golden walls of the throne room, and from their 
shoulders there spread downwards a cloak of golden porphyry, 
widening until it occupied the entire width of the stage and fell 
into the trap. In this tremendous cloak there were cut holes 
through which appeared a great number of courtiers’ heads, look- 
ing upward at the throne. . . . Add to this scene, so remarkable 
for its imagination and mystic impressionism, the impudent, 
threatening, piercing fanfares of brass instruments with unbe- 
lievable dissonances, which proclaimed to the whole world the 
criminal greatness and hypocrisy of the King who rose to the 


THE NEW STAGECRAFT 627 


throne.” In Elmer Rice’s Adding Machine the walls of Mr. 
Zero’s house are covered with numbers. One of the acts in 
Molnar’s Liiiom represents heaven in the shape of a minor 
police court as it might appear to a criminal. Even Ibsen’s 
plays have been produced with stylized settings. The objective 
naturalists show the effect of environment on character. The 
subjective expressionists show the effect of character on en- 
vironment. 

Back of the movement known as the New Stagecraft lies the 
old yet new spirit of the Greek synthetic art of drama. ‘The 
theatre is ceasing to be intellectual,” cry the timid reactionaries. 
“The theatre is beginning to live again now that you word-wor- 
shippers are being put into your proper places,” these men of 
the New Theatre retort. “We cannot understand this new 
drama,” complain the intellectuals. “Don’t try to understand 
it! Experience it,” is the answer. The theatre is a place in 
which to listen. The theatre is a place in which to see. Yes, 
it has been each one and both of these places. The New Thea- 
tre is the place to feel, to experience all life in all arts. The 
New Theatre is the most complex of all the arts. We must 
be patient while it experiments, forgiving whenever it fails, 
keeping our eyes on its possibilities, rather than on its per- 
formance. 


CHAPTER XXII 
SYMBOLISM. EXPRESSIONISM 


HE naturalists sought to substitute reproductions of every- 

day life for the dagger strokes and pistol shots of con- 
ventional tragedy. In removing heroics from drama they in- 
troduced the commonplace; but they still depicted life in its 
moments of struggle and violence. Maeterlinck considered 
drama dominated by anachronism because it depicted the life 
of violence. ‘Indeed, when I go to a theatre,” he complained, 
“T feel as though I were spending a few hours with my an- 
cestors, who conceived life as something that was primitive, 
arid and brutal ...I am shown a deceived husband killing 
his wife, a woman poisoning her lover, a son avenging his father, 
a father slaughtering his children, children putting their father — 
to death, murdered kings, ravished virgins, imprisoned citizens 
—in a word, all the sublimity of tradition, but alas, how super- 
ficial and material. Blood, surface tears and death . . . I was 
yearning for one of the strange moments of a higher life that 
flit unperceived through my dreariest hours; whereas, almost 
invariably, all that I beheld was but a man who would tell me, 
at wearisome length, why he was jealous, why he poisoned, or 
why he killed.” 

Maeterlinck, like the naturalists, found the true tragic ele- 
ment in the life of every day; but instead of finding it in ma- 
terial and psychological struggles as did they, he saw it in mo- 
ments of tranquillity and silence. “I have grown to believe,” 
he said, “that an old man seated in his armchair, waiting pa- 
tiently, with his lamp beside him; giving unconscious ear to all 
the eternal laws that reign about his house, interpreting, without 
comprehending, the silence of doors and windows and the quiv- 
ering voice of light, submitting with bent head to the presence 

628 


7 SYMBOLISM 629 


of his soul and his destiny—an old man, who conceives not that 
all the powers of this world, like so many heedful servants, are 
mingling and keeping vigil in his room, who suspects not that 
the very sun itself is supporting in space the table against which 
he leans, or that every star in heaven and every fibre of his 
soul are directly concerned in the movement of an eyelid that 
closes, or a thought that springs to birth—I have grown to be- 
lieve that he, motionless as he is, does yet live in reality a deeper, 
more human, and more universal life than the lover who 
strangles his mistress, the captain who conquers in battle, or 
the husband who avenges his honor.” 

Such is Maeterlinck’s theory of the static theatre as set forth 
in The Tragical in Daily Life. He saw examples of it in Greek 
tragedies in which not only the material action, but the psy- 
chological action were diminished in a “truly marvelous fashion, 
with the result that the interest centres solely and entirely in 
the individual face to face with the universe.” The physical 
action in Philoctetes is simple and ordinary. The chief in- 
terest of the tragedy for Maeterlinck lies neither in it nor in 
“the struggle we witness between cunning and loyalty, between 
love of country, rancor and headstrong pride.” The beauty 
and greatness, therefore, are not in plot or psychology, but in 
the words. There are two kinds of dialogue. There are “the 
words which accompany and explain the action”; and there is 
another dialogue that seems superfluous at first, but “examine 
it carefully and it will be borne home to you that this is the 
only one that the soul can listen to profoundly, for here alone 
is it the soul that is being addressed. . . . One may even affirm 
that a poem draws nearer to beauty and loftier truth in the meas- 
ure that it eliminates words that merely explain the action and 
substitutes for them others that reveal not the so-called ‘soul- 
state’ but I know not what intangible and unceasing striving of 
the soul towards its own beauty and truth.” 

Maeterlinck found in Ibsen’s Master Builder a drama in which 
this dialogue of the second degree attains the deepest tragedy. 
“Hilda and Solness are, I believe, the first characters in drama 


630 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


who feel, for an instant, that they are living in an atmosphere 
of the soul; and the discovery of this essential life that exists 
in them, beyond the life of every day, comes fraught with ter- 
ror.” For Maeterlinck, at least, there is a new kind of dramatic 
suspense which lies deeper than the suspense of the material 
action or the suspense of the psychological action. Maeterlinck 
has called it the ‘anguish of the unintelligible” which he finds 
in Ibsen’s Ghosts and in Tolstoi’s Power of Darkness. 

“Their conversation,” he says of Hilda and Solness, “resembles 
nothing that we “have ever heard, inasmuch as the poet has en- 
deavored to blend in one expression both the inner and outer 
dialogue. A new, indescribable power dominates this somnam- 
bulistic drama. All that is said therein at once hides and re- 
veals the sources of an unknown life. And if we are bewildered 
at times, let us not forget that our soul often appears to our 
feeble eyes to be but the maddest of forces, and that there are 
in man many regions more fertile, more profound and more 
interesting than those of his reason and intelligence.” 

Thus Maeterlinck advocated the deintellectualization of dra- 
matic art, the static drama and the dramatization of the “medi- 
tation that comes to us in the tranquil moments of life,” when 
the veil is partially lifted from the mystery of the universe. 

“In a symbol,” said Carlyle, “there is concealment and yet 
revelation: hence, therefore by silence and speech acting to- 
gether comes a double significance.” ‘The great art of silence,” 
as Voltaire called it, had been employed for dramatic purposes 


by AEschylus. With Maeterlinck it assumed the function — 


ascribed to it by Carlyle. Silence is not merely a means of © 
intensifying dramatic suspense but is “the angel of the supreme 
truth, the messenger that brings to the heart tidings of the un- 
known.” Even the dialogue of the second degree must be com- 
bined with silence, “for the soul tests its weight in silence and 


the words we let fall have no meaning apart from the silence — | 


that wraps them round.” 


In the Philosophe sans le Savoir we have called attention th a 


the effectiveness of the dialogue about the watch which, without 


SYMBOLISM 631 


any symbolism, is really about the possible death of young Van- 
derk. Akin to such methods, without being a direct outgrowth, 
is the use of symbolism as employed by Ibsen. With Maeter- 
linck, comes not only symbolism with its double significance, 
but also the significance of the words left unspoken. His tragic 
old man is supposed to interpret “without comprehending the 
silence of doors and windows and the quivering voice of light.” 

This may seem impossible and to be the rhetoric of a mystic. 
Yet attempts to put his theories into practice have not been 
failures. Indeed, the motionless life becomes visible in certain 
static scenes. When Pelléas and Mélisande, in the music drama, 
are watching the ship sail out to sea, the dialogue continues with 
orchestral accompaniment; but the final effect of the scene is 
one of silence, of the communion of the souls of these somnam- 
bulistic lovers. Maeterlinck, with the aid of Debussy’s music, 
approaches what he calls the “new theatre, a theatre of peace, 
and of beauty without tears.” 

Corresponding to his dialogue of the first and second degree 
is what may be called his action of the first and second degree. 
The visible action on the stage evokes the invisible action be- 
hind the scenes in such plays as The Intruder (L’Intruse) and 
The Death of Tintagiles (La Mort de Tintagiles). The visible 
and invisible action are simultaneous, as was sometimes the case 
in Greek tragedy, notably in the death scene in Agamemnon, 
and in the opening of the Eumenides. As one infers a mystic 
meaning from the spoken dialogue, so one infers the mystic 
action from the visible action. Sarcey used the phrase “The 
Maeterlinckian Beyond” with some contempt; but it is an apt 
description of his invisible place which is just beyond the visible 
scene of the action. Much of Maeterlinck’s action occurs in 
“The Beyond.” That is the reason that doors and windows are 
so important in his settings and in his symbolism. Doors sepa- 
rate the physical from the psychical, life from death. Doors 
that will not close, doors that will not open, doors that guard 
treasures, ghosts, plagues, women who will not be free, all have 
symbolic and dramatic significance. 


632 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


One of his most effective scenes is that in which Golaud holds 
little Yniold up to the window of the room in which are Pelléas 
and Mélisande. We do not actually see the young lovers, but 
like Golaud, we see them in the simple, broken words of the 
child. They are motionless—looking at the light—standing up- 
right against the wall—they never close their eyes. . . . Then, 
the child will tell no more—will look no more. If eyes are the 
windows of the soul of man, windows are the eyes of the soul 
of Maeterlinck’s drama. 3 

The Intruder is Maeterlinck’s most successful attempt to carry 
out his theories of dramatic art as they existed at this period 
of his career. He dramatized the coming of Death and exem- 
plified his tragic old man who, though almost totally blind, 
sees more than those whose eyes are undimmed. He alone pene- 
trates partially the mystery and feels the terror of the moment. 
He interprets the silences without comprehending. 

The setting is a gloomy room in an old chateau. “At the 
back, stained glass windows in which green is the dominant 


color and a glass door opening upon a terrace. A big Dutch 


clock in a corner. A lighted lamp.” 

The Grandfather seats himself under the lamp. His daughter 
has been ill for weeks since she gave birth to a baby that has 
never made a sound. “She is out of danger,” says the Father; 
but the Grandfather believes she is not doing well. A nun, the 
Father’s sister, is coming to visit the sick woman. The stars 
are out. It is moonlight. The nightingales are singing. Now 
they are hushed. Someone must have entered the garden. The 
silent, frightened swans have swum to the other bank. The 


dogs do not bark. “There is a stillness of death.” Cold comes — 


into the room. The glass door is open. They cannot shut it. 


All at once the sound of the sharpening of a scythe is heard ~ 
outside. The gardener is mowing in the garden; but to the sen- 


sitive ears of the Grandfather it seems as if he were mowing 


in the house. The lamp is burning dimly. A noise, as if some- — 


one coming into the house. It must be the nun. A knock on 


ee ee a a a en ee a ae 


SYMBOLISM 633 


the secret door. It is the maid-servant. She did not make 
the noise. The Grandfather feels a presence in the room. No. 
There is no one here but the family. The lamp burns out. 
Silence. ‘One could hear an angel’s step.” Silence. Silence. 
“T am afraid, too, my children.” Then a ray of moonlight pene- 
trates through a corner of the stained glass, and spreads strange 
gleams here and there in the room. Midnight strikes; and at 
the last stroke it seems to some that a sound is heard, very 
vaguely, as of someone rising in all haste. Who rose? No one. 
A wail of fright is heard from the child’s room. “Listen! the 
child! He has never cried before.” Heavy, headlong steps are 
heard in the wife’s room.—Then a deathly stillness——The Sister 
of Charity, clad in black, appears on the threshold. She makes 
the sign of the cross to announce the death of the wife. All 
but the Grandfather silently enter the room. He gropes ex- 
citedly about the table in darkness. ‘They have left me all 
alone.” 

Here is a play without plot, without depiction of character. 
Maeterlinck’s people are marionettes, as he frankly admitted. 
It makes little difference who speaks the lines. The sounds, es- 
pecially the knocking, the ensuing silence, the: light, the doors 
and windows, the repetitions, “the perilous simplicity of speech 
and act,” as he called it, are all characteristic of Maeterlinck’s 
dramaturgy. He described The Master Builder as a somnam- 
bulistic drama. The dialogue of his Princesse Maleine gives “the 
characters the appearance of somnambulists who are a little 
deaf and are being continually awakened from a painful dream.” 
Tyltyl and Mytyl in The Blue Bird (L’Oiseau Bleu) are dream- 
ing somnambulists trying to penetrate the mysteries of life 
and death. This dream-like atmosphere pervades all his plays. 
His settings of forests, sombre Gothic halls and towers with 
doors and windows behind which lurks the mysterious, are de- 
signed to enhance this effect and to harmonize with the mood 
of the scene. Light plays an important rdle in his plays and is 
actually personified in The Blue Bird. He was one of the first 
playwrights after Wagner to recognize the dynamic quality of 


634 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART | 


light and colors which change and dissolve in accompaniment 
to the spiritual action. 

His stage directions describe the effect he wishes to obtain 
and the dialogue notes the change in the light scenario. He 
runs the whole scale from darkness to light that is “unbearable.” 
His personification of Light in The Blue Bird says: “I have not 
a voice like Water; I have only my brightness, which Man does 
not understand. ... But I watch over him to the end of his 
days. .. . Never forget that I am speaking to you in every 
spreading moonbeam, in every twinkling star, in every dawn that 
rises, in every lamp that is lit, in every good and bright thought in 
your soul.” The rdéle of light in the modern theatre is no less 
important than in Maeterlinck’s philosophy. Appia and Craig 
personify light and speak of its function in drama in similar 
terms. . 

Sound, silence, light and color, together with the feild: im- 
plications of the spoken words, are the most important elements 
of his symbolism and his dramatic effects. They are the means 
he employs to evoke the invisible, the intangible, the subcon- 
scious and the unintelligible. As a result, his symbolistic dramas 
lend themselves to productions in expressionistic style. 

Maeterlinck has become convinced that purely static drama 
is impossible. ‘Whatever the temptation,” he says, in his essay 
on The Modern Drama, “he (the dramatist) dare not sink into 
inactivity, become a mere philosopher or observer. Do what 


one will, discover what marvels one may, the sovereign law 


of the stage, its essential demand will always be action. ... 


And there are no words so profound, so noble and admirable, _ 


but they will soon weary us if they leave the situation un- 
changed, if they lead to no action, bring about no decisive con- 
flict, or hasten no definite solution.” Yet Maeterlinck himself 
has been largely responsible for what he calls the “paralysis 
of external action” in modern drama. 

He is not a man of the theatre, and like Charles Lamb, he 
believes that dramas presented by human agency lose some of _ 
their beauty. He feels so conscious of the actor that he forgets a 


SYMBOLISM 635 


the character. He prefers plays in his imagination to those 
on the stage. Yet he has had a profound influence on the 
modern stage not merely in his use of symbolism but in show- 
ing the power of expressionism in dramatic art. Whatever we 
may think of his mysticism and of his philosophy, he has made 
us hear certain overtones which heretofore were inaudible in 
drama of violent situations and were lost in the hammering on 
rather obvious social problems. The production of The Blue 
Bird in expressionistic style by the Moscow Art Theatre in 
IgIo is an important date in modern drama. Debussy’s musical 
version of Pelléas and Mélisande is an early example of syn- 
thetic art in which the separate arts are finely balanced. The 
Intruder and The Death of Tintagiles have shown us that drama 
can be something other than a violent struggle of human pas- 
sions and discussions of social laws and customs. 

When Sarcey saw the first production of Pelléas and Méli- 
sande, which was made in Paris by Lugne-Poé in 1893, he wrote 
a witty review of the play; but his views illustrate the change 
which was taking place in dramatic art. Belonging to the older 
generation which admired the problem play, with its geometrical 
demonstration, he complained of the obscurity of the symbol- 
istic drama. Commenting on the line: “She was born with- 
out reason ... to die; and she dies without reason,’ Sarcey 
wrote: “That is precisely what I complain about. For only 
the knowledge of the reason for things entertains me in the 
theatre.” But this form of drama makes a conscious break 
with reason and our reasoning powers. We are supposed to ex- 
perience the play. Sarcey quotes a friend, probably imaginary, 
as saying: “The theatre, in the new school, is a sombre wall 
behind which something mysterious is happening. You perceive 
at intervals, through an opening, a shadow which glides by mur- 
muring enigmatic words; you guess the rest.” Though written 
in a spirit of mockery these words define exactly the aim and 
the source of artistic pleasure of Maeterlinck’s dramas. 

Strindberg began as a romanticist, became a naturalist, passed 
from naturalism to symbolism under the influence of Maeter- 


636 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART. 


linck and finally introduced expressionism into dramatic art. 
His naturalistic period in drama began with his play The Father 
(1887), which was produced by Antoine in 1888 and which 
gave Strindberg an international reputation as dramatist. His 
preface to Miss Julia was a reply to the hostile criticism evoked 
by The Father and it set forth much of his naturalistic theory 
of dramatic art, especially in regard to the Little or Intimate 
Theatre. 

He advocated physical changes such as the abolition of foot- 


lights, less make-up for actors, a small stage in a small audi- — 


torium. He dared not dream of beholding the actor’s back 
throughout an important scene, but he hoped that crucial scenes 
might not be played in the centre of the proscenium. ‘“To make 
a real room of the stage, with the fourth wall missing, and a 


part of the furniture placed back towards the audience, would 


probably produce a disturbing effect at present.” But the rear 
wall of the scene in Miss Julia was placed diagonally across 
the stage. “Having only a single setting, one may demand to 
have it real.” He objected to pots and pans painted on the 
scenery. He tried to abolish the division into acts because he 
feared that “our decreasing capacity for illusion might be un- 
favorably affected by intermissions during which the spectator 
would have time to reflect and to get away from the suggestive 
influence of the author-hypnotist.” He filled in the pauses of 
the action by the dance, pantomime, and monologue. He sought 
to prove that the monologue is a justifiable procedure provided 
it is employed at moments when a person in real life would 
talk to himself. 

All these suggestions, including that of the fourth wall, were 
adopted by the realistic theatre; but in 1909 Strindberg said of 
this search for actuality: “I cannot but regard all that pottering 
with stage properties as useless.” In a brief discussion of 
“stylization” in his Dramaturgy, Strindberg has described how 
he came under the influence of Maeterlinck. He read in 1890 
a criticism of Maeterlinck’s plays. It seemed to him satire or 
nonsense. When he read the plays themselves, Maeterlinck was 


eee a! Pen” 


Pe Pa ee ey ee ee a ee ee eS Se ee ee ey ee eS ee a ee 


ee a ye 


EXPRESSIONISM 637 


a closed book to him because he was so deeply sunk in ma- 
terialism. ‘But I felt,’ he continues, “a certain unrest and a 
sadness that I could not grasp the beauty and depth that I 
sensed and for which I yearned as a damned soul yearns for 
the company of the Blessed. Only after I had passed through 
the Inferno years (1896-99) did I find Maeterlinck again, and 
then he seemed like a new land and a new era.” 

Strindberg felt that Maeterlinck’s characters live on another 
plane; that Maeterlinck is in communication with a higher 
world; and that in this wonderful world of the poet everything 
has different dimensions, different light, different tone. Strind- 
berg disliked Ibsen, but he found in Maeterlinck that “transcen- 
dental soul” and the “essential life” that exists beyond the life 
of every day which Maeterlinck found in The Master Builder. 

Such is the life in a world stripped of reality that Strindberg 
depicts in his trilogy To Damascus. Even his early Lucky Pehr 
(1883) is an allegorical play of an unreal world in which objects 
such as a funeral pall and a broom are endowed with life. Cer- 
tain human characters are abstractions. Pehr himself is Youth, 
who goes forth into the world and returns home to find hap- 
piness in unselfish love. The world depicted in Lucky Pehr 
is the world of the medieval allegory. It is doubtful that Strind- 
berg would have produced even symbolic drama had he not 
undergone the influence of Maeterlinck; yet he was less a 
stranger in Maeterlinck’s dream world of The Blue Bird be- 
cause he had depicted an allegorical world in Lucky Pehr. 

Even his naturalistic conception of character was a preparation 
for his depiction of character in To Damascus. In the preface 
to Miss Julia he stated his theory as follows: 


In the course of the ages the word character has assumed many 
meanings. Originally it signified probably the ground-note in the 
complex mass of self, and as such it was confused with tempera- 
ment. Afterward it became the middle-class term for an automaton, 
so that an individual whose nature had come to a stand-still, or 
who had adapted himself to a certain part in life—who had ceased 


638 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


to grow, in a word—was named a character. . . . This middle-class 
notion about the immobility of the soul was transplanted to the 
stage, where the middle-class element has always held sway. There 
a character became synonymous with a gentleman fixed and finished 
once for all—one who invariably appeared drunk, jolly, sad... . 
This manner of regarding human beings as homogeneous is pre- 
served even by the great Moliére. Harpagon is nothing but miserly, 
although Harpagon might as well have been at once miserly and a 
financial genius, a fine father, and a public spirited citizen. . . . I 
do not believe, therefore, in simple characters on the stage. And 
the summary judgments of the author upon men—this one stupid, 
and that one brutal, this one jealous and that one stingy—should 
be challenged by the naturalists, who know the fertility of the soul 
complex, and who realize that ‘‘vice” has a reverse very much re- 
sembling virtue... . Pit 

My souls (or characters) are conglomerates, made up of past and 
present stages of civilization, scraps of humanity, torn-off pieces 
of sundry clothing turned into rags—all patched together as is the 
human soul itself. 


The character of Julia is a conglomerate. The action of the 
play arises from her complex psychology which is the result of 
her heredity, her environment, events in her past life, the pres- 
ent circumstances and the influence of others, such as her fiancé 
and her parents, who do not appear in the play. The action, as 
Strindberg said, cannot be traced back to a single motive but 
it springs from a whole series of more or less deep-lying mo- 
tives. The primary emphasis, however, is placed upon the 
theme of social ascendancy and decline of classes. The deep- 
lying motives and the complex psychology of Julia are given as 
causes of the action. But the action passes in a world as real 
as the devices of the naturalistic theatre can make it. There- 
fore, whatever lies in the past or outside of the one room must 
be narrated in dialogue. Julia is the embodiment of a con- 
glomerate soul. We see her act as she does because of certain 
influences; but she is a naturalistic individual in a naturalistic 
world. For these reasons the deep-lying motives and the ele- 


EXPRESSIONISM 639 


ments which compose her complex soul are in the background. 
Strindberg brought them into the foreground when he left his 
naturalistic world for his expressionistic world. 

In his trilogy To Damascus, Strindberg entered the Maeter- 
linckian dream world where reality cannot enchain the dreamer’s 
thought and imagination. He analyzed his own conglomerate 
soul. He is the character called The Unknown. This character 
sub-divides. The Unknown meets himself in different phases 
of his own entity. He beholds himself as he was in certain 
periods of his life. Czsar, the madman, and The Beggar are 
parts of his own personality. The Woman is a concept, or 
rather several concepts which appear to him at different times. 
Strindberg described his new method of playwriting in a prefa- 
tory note to The Dream Play (1902) as follows: 


As he did in his previous dream play [To Damascus], so in this 
one the author has tried to imitate the disconnected but seemingly 
logical form of the dream. Anything may happen; everything is 
possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On an 
insignificant background of reality, imagination designs and em- 
broiders novel patterns, free fancies, absurdities and improvisations. 

The characters split, double, multiply, vanish, solidify, blur, 
clarify. But one consciousness reigns above them all—that of the 
dreamer; and before it there are no secrets, no incongruities, no 
scruples, no laws. 


Maeterlinck’s dream world is inhabited by people who are 
personifications and symbols. His characters are mysterious be- 
cause they live in a world beyond reality. But they have few 
attributes. They are not conglomerate souls. 

Strindberg’s dream world is the world of Strindberg’s soul. 
His characters are concepts of all the elements and influences 
which form the human soul. His people are never fixed. They 
are changing organisms. Strindberg was abnormally subjective 
and introspective. He indulged in self-inflicted torture through 
constant mental vivisection. He personified emotions in his 


640 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


plays. External events with ‘an insignificant background of 
reality” lose their externality and become completely identified 
with psychological reactions of the characters. In the motion 
picture The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari we see the action and the 
setting through the eyes and brain of a madman. So in Strind- 
berg’s To Damascus, the drama comes to us through the char- 
acter called The Unknown, who appears in every scene and is 
off the stage for only a few minutes during the’ whole trilogy. 
We behold this strange world through his eyes. The result is 
what has been called ‘“monodrama.” 3 

The medieval mystery plays and the allegorical plays aimed 
to interpret the spiritual life through realistic methods. Strind- 
berg tried to interpret real life through spiritual methods. The 
aim of medieval drama was to save souls for the after life. 
Strindberg attempted to save souls for this life by analyzing the 
deep-lying motives of our acts and by revealing the hidden re- 
cesses of the subconscious. 

Strindberg’s theatre has been called anarchistic. It knows 
no rules, save that there must be impersonation. It knows no 
limits, for it is as vast and as flexible as the mind of the dreamer. 
Under his influence the last fetters of the old dramatic tradi- 
tions have been struck off, for the realistic concepts of time and 
space do not exist in his dream world. 

In such plays as To Damascus, The Dream Play and The 
Spook Sonata there is inartistic obscurity and too much pseudo- 
profundity. Yet they reveal the processes and the infinite varia- 
tions of the mind of a conscious dreamer. They half illumine 
hidden recesses of human nature by methods which had never 
been so fully and frankly employed in the theatre. Strindberg 
did not employ these methods with complete success. Expres- 
sionism is still in its experimental period in the theatre. But all 
expressionistic dramatists who strip the external film of the 
world of reality from their conceptions of life in order to present 
their interpretation of the human soul are either conscious or 
unconscious disciples of Strindberg, the inspired madman. 

The serious drama of the nineteenth century presented man 


EXPRESSIONISM 641 


in his relation to social laws and customs. It depicted the strug- 
gle of the sexes in relation to society. A large part of the drama 
of the twentieth century seeks to depict man’s struggle with 
himself. Instead of trying to solve the riddle of the universe, 
drama is attempting to solve the riddle of personality. The 
struggle of man against the gods, fate, destiny, heredity or en- 
vironment has been replaced by the struggle of man to under- 
stand himself. In To Damascus the man is mentally unbalanced 
at times and he sees himself as the madman. Modern psychology 
has taught us that we are not hopelessly unbalanced if we have 
divided personalities. We no longer believe that a man who 
shows one side of his nature to the world or who masks his real 
personality is a hypocrite. 

The modern dramatic hero does not eternally proclaim to the 
world: “I have a great will. See what I do in this situation!” 
He asks: “Why do I do this? What am I?” At the end of 
Maria Magdalena, Anton says: “I don’t understand the world 
any more.” He means that all his ideas of social law and custom 
have become incomprehensible. That is his tragedy in the nine- 
teenth century. When the last curtain comes down on Piran- 
dello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IVth, or 
Right You Are, If You Think You Are, his people are saying: 
“What are we? Do we exist? When do we exist?” That is 
their tragedy in the twentieth century. 

The modern dramatist seeks to analyze the human mind. He 
employs any method that seems suitable to his particular task. 
In Pellerin’s Tétes de Rechanges the principal character starts 
out to dine. By the time he arrives, he has become six separate 
persons. The title of Alice Gerstenberg’s Overtones is typical of 
this form of drama. The play presents an interview between 
two women, each of whom is represented by her primitive self, 
Hetty and Maggie, and her cultured self, Harriet and Margaret. 
“The primitive and cultured selves never come into actual phys- 
ical contact but try to sustain the impression of mental conflict. 
Harriet never sees Hetty, never talks to her, but rather thinks 
aloud looking into space. Hetty, however, looks at Harriet, talks 


642 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


intently and shadows her continually. The same is true of Mar- 
garet and Maggie.” The cultured selves are the subtle overtones 
of the primitive selves who wear chiffon veils. Both Margaret 
and Harriet are married; but Harriet loves Margaret’s husband 
whom she refused to marry because he was too poor. During 
the interview the veiled, primitive selves reveal the thoughts 
behind the words of the cultured selves. 

The title of Evreinov’s Theatre of the Soul, a monodrama in 
one act, is typical of another phase of this form of drama. The 
scene of the action is the human breast where the soul is sup- 
posed to reside. The setting is a pulsating heart. In the pro- 
logue to the play The Professor says: “The human soul is not 
indivisible, but on the contrary, is composed of several selves, 
the natures of which are different. Thus if M represents I 
myself (He writes on the board), M== M1 M2 M3.. . Mn.” 
He explains that Mr is the rational self or the Reason; M2 is 
the emotional self or Feeling; M3 is the physical self or the 
Eternal. | 

The Rational Entity and the Emotional Entity are in conflict 
over a Dancer. The Emotional Entity’s concept of the Dancer 
appears. She is seductive and “she sings and dances to the 
rhythm of the heart which beats joyously.” The Rational Entity 
summons its concept of the Dancer. She is old and hideous and 
the Emotional Entity pushes her away. The Rational Entity’s 
Concept of the Wife appears. She is nursing a child and croons 
a lullaby. The Emotional Entity pushes her away. She is the 
“eternal housemaid.” The Emotional Entity’s Concept of the 
Wife is an ordinary slovenly bourgeoise. Finally the Emotional 
Entity kills the Rational Entity and throws himself at the feet 
of the seductive Concept of the Dancer. She laughs at him. 
He has no money. He commits suicide. The Subliminal Entity 
awakens. A railroad Porter says it is time to change cars and 
the Subliminal Entity goes forth. 

Another example of the personification and analysis of abstract 
elements in the life of man is found in Toller’s Man and the 
Masses (Masse-Mensch). When Hauptmann dramatized the 


EXPRESSIONISM 643 


condition of the weavers in Germany he made a collective crowd 
the protagonist in his play. He employed naturalistic methods. 
His crowd does and says nothing which a crowd could not do or 
say in real life. He depicted the psychology of a mob as it is 
manifested externally. Toller employed expressionistic methods. 
He depicted the inner psychology of the Masses as it is mani- 
fested externally in the symbolic figure of the Nameless One 
who is described as The Spirit of the Masses. As the program 
of the American production tells us, the theme of the play is 
“the inevitable tragic nature of the conflict between man, the 
individual, and the needs of the masses. The protagonist is a 
woman profoundly convinced that no cause can be really won 
if it is won at the price of war and bloodshed.” The Woman is a 
radical but has strong humanitarian instincts. She is the only 
character in the play who has a name, Sonia Irene L., and even 
her name seems to be symbolic of the Russian communist move- 
ment. The Man, her husband, is the State. 

Three of the nine scenes “take place in the woman’s mind, 
projecting through a dream medium her horror of capitalistic 
control, of proletarian warfare, and her pity for its victims.” 
In a Letter to a Creative Producer which appears as a preface, 
Toller explains his method as follows: 


“There are critics who complain that, although the ‘dream scenes’ 
are sufficiently dream-like, you gave the ‘realistic scenes’ a visionary 
air, and that thus you blur the boundary between dream and reality. 
I wish emphatically to declare that you have altogether realized my 
intention. These ‘realistic? pictures are no typical naturalistic 
scenes. With the exception of Sonia, the types are not individual- 
ized. What can be realistic in my drama Man and the Masses? 
Only the spiritual, intellectual qualities.” 


By such methods and with the aid of expressionistic settings 
which banish all ideas of concrete realism, Toller analyzes and 
dramatizes the spiritual intellectual qualities of his theme. The 
play reveals many psychological elements in the conflict between 
man and the masses which remain hidden perforce in Haupt- 


644. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


mann’s naturalistic Weavers. Yet a danger lurks in blurring the 
boundary between dream and reality. The play does not aim 
to give the spectator merely the sensation of a revolution. It 
has a definite intellectual theme. The program of the American 
production gave a detailed synopsis of each scene and an explana- 
tion of the symbolism without which perhaps not one spectator 
in a thousand would have grasped the true significance of many 
of the lines. The modern dramatist who uses such methods in 
order to reveal truths must differentiate between obscurity which 
explains and obscurity which needs explanation. 

Instead of employing separate actors to personify aspects of a 
personality, Eugene O’Neill has employed masks which the 
character dons or removes as his personality changes or as he 
wishes to present his internal or external self to other characters 
in his drama The Great God Brown. In his Lazarus Laughed 
the crowds and the choruses are masked according to a very 
elaborate scheme in order to show their ages and characteristics. 
The masks vary from scene to scene and over three hundred are 
required. In the first scene all the figurants except Lazarus are 
masked in accordance with the following scheme: 


There are seven periods of life shown: Boyhood (or Girlhood), 
Youth, Young Manhood (or Womanhood), Manhood (or Woman- 
hood), Middle Age, Maturity and Old Age; and each of these 
periods is represented by seven masks of general types of character 
as follows: The Simple, Ignorant; the Happy, Eager; the Self- 
Tortured, Introspective; the Proud, Self-Reliant; the Servile, Hypo- 
critical; the Revengeful, Cruel; the Sorrowful, Resigned. . . . Each 
type has a distinct predominant color for its costumes which varies 
in kind according to its period. The masks of the Chorus of Old 
Men are double the size of the others. 


Lazarus Laughed is a massive piece of synthetic drama in 
which all the arts are called upon and must be employed lavishly 
to carry the idea: “Death is dead! Fear no more! There is 
only life! There is only laughter!” Such is the message that 


EXPRESSIONISM 645 


Lazarus brings back from the grave and tries to teach men— 
but “men forget.” 

The Great God Brown is a drama which minutely analyzes 
personalities and at the same time attempts to carry, as an over- 
tone, a mystical background of conflicting tides in the soul of 
Man. O’Neill’s explanation of his methods and aims is an im~- 
portant document in the history of modern drama. It shows 
the possibilities and the limitations as yet inherent in such forms 
of art. When speculation was rife as to the meaning of this 
interesting but complicated play, O’Neill wrote as follows: 


I realize that when a playwright takes to explaining he thereby 
automatically places himself “in the dock.”’ But where an open 
avowal by the play itself of the abstract theme underlying it is 
made impossible by the very nature of that hidden theme, then 
perhaps it is justifiable for the author to confess the mystical 
pattern which manifests itself as an overtone in The Great God 
Brown, dimly behind and beyond the words and actions of the 
characters. 

I had hoped the names chosen for my people would give a strong 
hint of this. (An old scheme, admitted—Shakespeare and multi- 
tudes since.) Dion Anthony—Dionysus and St. Anthony—the cre- 
ative pagan acceptance of life, fighting eternal war with the maso- 
chistic, life-denying spirit of Christianity as represented by St. 
Anthony—the whole struggle resulting in this modern day in mutual 
exhaustion—creative joy in life for life’s sake frustrated, ren- 
dered abortive, distorted by morality from Pan into Satan, into a 
Mephistopheles mocking himself in order to feel alive; Christianity, 
once heroic in martyrs for its intense faith now pleading weakly for 
intense belief in anything, even Godhead itself. (In the play it is 
Cybele, the Pagan Earth Mother, who makes the assertion with 
authority: “Our Father, Who Art!” to the dying Brown, as it is she 
who tries to inspire Dion Anthony with her certainty in life for 
its own sake.) 

Margaret is my image of the modern direct descendant of the 
Marguerite of Faust—the eternal girl-woman with a virtuous sim- 


646 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


plicity of instinct, properly oblivious to everything but the means 
to her end of maintaining the race. 

Cybel is an incarnation of Cybele, the Earth Mother doomed to 
segregation as a pariah in a world of unnatural laws but patronized 
by her segregators who are thus the first victims of their laws. 

Brown is the visionless demi-god of our new materialistic myth— 
a Success—building his life of exterior things, inwardly empty and 
resourceless, an uncreative creature of superficial preordained social 
grooves, a by-product forced aside into slack waters by the deep : 
main current of life-desire. 

Dion’s mask of Pan which he puts on as a boy is not only a 
defense against the world for the supersensitive painter-poet under- 
neath it but also an. integral part of his character as the artist. 
The world is not only blind to the man beneath but it also sneers 
at and condemns the Pan-mask it sees. After that Dion’s inner 
self retrogresses along the line of Christian resignation until it — 
partakes of the nature of the Saint while at the same time the 
outer Pan is slowly transformed by his struggle with reality into 
Mephistopheles. It is as Mephistopheles he falls stricken at Brown’s 
feet after having condemned Brown to destruction by willing him ~ 
his mask, but, this mask falling off as he dies, it is the Saint who 
kisses Brown’s feet in abject contrition and pleads as a little ee to 
a big brother to tell him a prayer. 

Brown has always envied the creative life force in Dick ik he 
himself lacks. When he steals the mask of Mephistopheles he thinks 
he is gaining the power to live creatively while in reality he is 
only stealing that creative power made self-destructive by complete 
frustration. This devil of mocking doubt makes short work of him. — 
It enters him, rending him apart, torturing him and transfiguring 
him until he is even forced to wear a mask of his Success, William 
A. Brown, before the world, as well as Dion’s mask towards wife and 
children. Thus Billy Brown becomes not himself to anyone. And 
thus he partakes of Dion’s anguish—more poignantly, for Dion had 
the Mother, Cybele—and in the end out of his anguish his soul is 
born, a tortured Christian soul such as the dying Dion’s, begging for 
belief, and at the last finding it on the lips of Cybele. 

And now for an explanation regarding this explanation. It was 
far from my idea in writing Brown that his background pattern of 


EXPRESSIONISM 647 


conflicting tides in the soul of Man should ever overshadow and thus 
throw out of proportion the living drama of the recognizable human 
beings, Dion, Brown, Margaret and Cybele. I meant it always to be 
mystically within and behind them, giving them a significance be- 
yond themselves, forcing itself through them to expression in mys- 
terious words, symbols, actions they do not themselves comprehend. 
And that is as clearly as I wish an audience to comprehend it. It is 
Mystery—the mystery any one man or woman can feel but not 
understand as the meaning of any event—or accident—in any life on 
earth. And it is this mystery I want to realize in the theatre. The 
solution, if there ever be any, will probably have to be produced 
in a test tube and turn out to be discouragingly undramatic. 


Having seen the play and having read O’Neill’s explanation 
one understands; but is it going to be necessary to have an- 
notated programs for modern drama? The Great God Brown is 
too overburdened with meaning to be clear either to spectator or 
reader without elucidation. We have a right to demand that a 
work of art be self-contained. Dramatic art is the richest of 
all the arts. A dramatist ought not to be forced to rely upon 
printed explanations or synopses of scenes in order to communi- 
cate completely his ideas to an intelligent audience. The use of 
masks in The Great God Brown was enlightening and baffling 
by turns. The blurring of symbolism and reality was often 
troublesome. When a man is dead can you steal his mask which 
represents his personality? Certainly, because he may be only 
symbolistically dead. But if Dion Anthony is symbolistically 
dead why does Brown fear the police? Are they symbols? No. 
The spectator is willing to play any game, to pretend anything 
the dramatist requests in order to penetrate the mystery of life 
and the enigma of personality. But The Great God Brown befogs 
the brain and then asks the brain to function. Lazarus Laughed 
is a finer work of art in that the theme is clear and simple; and 
the symbolism and masks and crowds are employed to help us 
experience and sense the message of Lazarus to the world. There 
is no blurring of the spiritual with the real because there is no 
touch of realism in the whole drama. 


648 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


If The Great God Brown is irritatingly obscure, Strange Inter- 
lude is the clearest and the most minute analysis of the enigma 
of human personality in all drama. The title means “life,” for 
Nina says: “Strange interlude! Yes, our lives are merely strange 
dark interludes in the electrical display of God the Father.” 
O’Neill has not tried to solve the mystery of life or to paint a 
whole world. He has taken four people when life really begins 
for them and he shows how they lived for years and years ex- 
ternally and in their own secret selves; what they said; what 
they did; what they hoped. Other dramas have done as much; 
but no drama except Strange Interlude has ever told us clearly 
what people thought as they spoke and hoped and acted. 

We had learned long ago to read hidden motives behind spoken 
words. We had tuned our ears to the Chekhovian silence and to 
the Maeterlinckian dialogue of the second degree. In Strange 
Interlude each character speaks his inmost thoughts in a mono- 
logue or an aside. However, the terms monologue and aside are 
somewhat misleading. When a character is speaking his thoughts 
all actors on the stage are motionless and the awkward effect 
of the old aside is entirely absent. The audience easily accepts 
the convention that the other characters do not hear; and it 
seems as if we were divining with absolute accuracy the thoughts 
of the character. These monologues cast an artistic spell be- 
cause they contain the illuminating truth. The dialogue makes 
the desired impression of external illusion. The thoughts are 
the inner reality of each character. They come in quick, short 
phrases like plashes of light that reveal the raw, pulsating per- 
sonality behind the false shell which protects it from mortal view. 

It is said that O’Neill has used the method of a novelist. The 
play is long. It takes four hours playing time to present the 
nine acts of this drama. The monologues have been compared 
to the comments of a novelist and to narrative passages. But 
Strange Interlude is a play in every sense of the word. One is 
never conscious of the writer’s comments or of narration. The 
thoughts of the characters are theirs alone. The characters are 
before our eyes in flesh and blood. We see their lives unfold 


EXPRESSIONISM 649 


before us. We hear them speak. We do not guess, we know 
what they think and how they feel. The effect is one that the 
novel can never produce. The spectator has a sensation of 
omniscience, as if for the first time he were penetrating the inner 
personality of living human beings. 

Nothing whatsoever is left to our imagination. What little 
symbolism there is, such as Gordon’s departure in an airplane, 
is perfectly obvious. The play is not subtle in the sense that we 
must indulge in creative thinking, as we must in symbolistic or 
expressionistic drama. We see into the inmost hearts of the 
characters ; but we do not live in them as we live in Hamlet. We 
are absolutely objective spectators. The naturalists, such as 
Henri Becque, have shown us the externalities of life. The spec- 
tator at a performance of Les Carbeaux knows exactly as much 
of the characters and their actions as if he had been permitted 
to be an invisible spectator of these episodes in real life. But 
he knows nothing more. Nor does he feel that there is anything 
beyond these externalities. In symbolic dramas such as Heiberg’s 
Tragedy of Love, D’Annunzio’s Gioconda, or Ibsen’s Master 
Builder, we are conscious of a deeper meaning half-hidden behind 
the external manifestation of the life on the stage. We can 
speculate on the hidden meaning, if we wish. The dramas of 
Maeterlinck are played in a Beyond, which lies behind doors, 
windows, curtains, walls and which we must penetrate if we are 
to grasp or even vaguely feel the significance of the play. In 
expressionistic drama, such as Toller’s Man and the Masses, 
O’Neill’s Lazarus Laughed, we are in a spiritual world of abstract 
ideas personified by human beings, light, form, color and sound. 
In Strange Interlude externalities of life are depicted exactly in 
all necessary detail. But since the innermost thoughts of the 
people are also presented exactly in all necessary detail and 
since nothing is left to the creative imagination of the specta- 
tor, perhaps we may call Strange Interlude a super-naturalistic 
drama. 

Will Strange Interlude create a new form of drama that will 
compete in length and in method with the novel? Or is the 


650 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC ART 


play merely an example of the new spirit in dramatic art which 
permits a dramatist to use whatever form and whatever method 
that will best interpret life? Only time can tell. We do not 
know what our grandchildren will see in the theatre when the 
plays of the first generation of the twentieth century have be- 
come old-fashioned and are dated. They will smile, with kindly 
indulgence, at plays we admire. ‘They will declare their faith 
in new forms of art. But it is hoped that they will be grateful 
to this age which set the drama free. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 
I 


A SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF IMPORTANT PLAYS TREATED 
IN THE TEXT WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO COLLECTIONS 
AND ANTHOLOGIES AND TO TRANSLATIONS IN ENGLISH 


CHAPTERS I-IV AND VIII 


AESCHYLUS, Tragedies, translated by H. W. Smyth, Loeb Library; 
by J. S. Blackie, Everyman’s Library. 

ARISTOPHANES, Comedies, text with translation by B. B. Rogers, 
each play in a separate vol.; by W. J. Hickie, Bohn Library. 

Eurrpwes, Tragedies, translated by A. S. Way, Loeb Library; by 
various authors, Everyman’s Library. 

MENANDER, Comedies, translated by F. G. Allinson, Loeb Library. 

PLautus, Comedies, translated by H. T. Riley, Bohn Library; by 
Paul Nixon, Loeb Library. 

SENECA, Tragedies, translated by F. J. Miller, Loeb Library. 

SopHocies, Tragedies, translated by F. Storr, Loeb Library; by 
George Young, Everyman’s Library. 

TERENCE, Comedies, translated by H. T. Riley, Bohn Library; by 
John Sargeaunt, Loeb Library. 


CHAPTERS VI-VII, IX-X 


Ancien thédtre francois, ed. by M. Viollet-le-Duc, 1854-57 (10 
vols.) (Contains farces, moralities, tragedies, and comedies. ) 
Antichrist and Adam, translated by S. F. Barrow and W. H. 
Hulme, Western Reserve University Bulletin, 1925. 
Bize, THEODORE DE, A Tragedie of Abraham’s Sacrifice, translation 
by M. W. Wallace (University of Toronto Studies, 1906). 
Dodsley’s Old English Plays, ed. by W. C. Hazlitt, 1874-76 
(15 vols.). 
651 


652 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Drames liturgiques, ed. by C. E. H. de Coussemaker, 1860. (Text 
with translation in French.) 

English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes, ed. by A. W. Pol- 
lard, 1923. 

‘GascoicNnE, GEORGE, Supposes and Jocasta, ed. by J. W. Cunliffe, 
1906. 

Love in a French Kitchen, a medieval pie translated by C. C. 
Clements and J. M. Saunders (Poet-Lore, 1917). 

Le théatre francais au XVI¢ et au XVII siécle, ed. by E. Fournier, 

Le théatre francais avant la Renaissance, ed. by E. Fournier, 1872. 

Minor Elizabethan Drama, Vol. I, ‘“Pre-Shakespearean Tragedies,” 
Vol. II, “Pre- Siekeaneacene Conte ” ed. by A. Thorn- 
dyke, Everyman’s Library. 

Viracles de Notre-Dame, ed. by G. Paris and U. Robert, 1876-93 
(8 vols.) (Société des anciens textes francais.) 

Representative English Comedies, ed. by C. M. Gayley, 1903. 

Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama, ed. by J. M. Manley, 
1897 (2 vols.). (Contains examples of all forms of English 
drama of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.) 

Teatro italiano antico, ed. by G. D. Poggiali, 1808 (10 vols.). 

The Farce of Master Pierre at translated by R. Holbrook, 
1905. 

Thédtre francais au moyen-dge, ed. by L. J. N. D. Monmerqué and 
F. X. Michel, 1842. (Specimens of medieval drama with 
translation in modern French.) | 

Tudor Facsimile Texts, ed. by J. S. Farmer (1907)f. 


CHAPTERS XI-XIV AND XXII 


AuctER, E., and SANpEAU, JutEes, The Son-in-law of M. Poirier 
(Le gendre de M. Poirier) in Chief European Dramatists. 

Bauzac, H. pre, Dramas, ed. by J. W. McSpadden, 1901. 

BrecquE, H., The Vultures, The Woman of Paris, The Merry-Go- 
Round, translated by F. Tilden, 1913, Modern Drama 
Series. 

Chief Contemporary Dramatists, ed. by T. H. Dickinson, 1915 (2d 
series, 1921). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 653 


Chief European Dramatists, ed. by Brander Matthews, 1916. 
CoRNEILLE, P., Givvres completes, ed. by Marty-Laveaux, 1862-68 
(12 vols.). 

The Cid, translation in Chief European Dramatists, ed. 
by Brander Matthews, 1916. 

Dumas, ALEXANDRE, the younger, The Foreigner (L’Etrangére), 
New York, F. Rullman, 1881. 

The Money-Question (La question d’argent) in Poet- 

Lore, 1915. 

The Outer Edge of Society (Le demi-monde) in Chief 
European Dramatists. 

GOETHE, J. W. von, Dramatic Works, Bohn Library. 

HauptMann, G., Dramatic Works, ed. by L. Lewisohn, 1912-17 
(7 vols.). 

HEBBEL, C. F., Three Plays (Gyges and His Ring, Herod and 
Mariamne, Maria Magdalena), Everyman’s Library. 

Huco, V., Te Dramatic Works, 1900 (3 vols.). 

_ Hernani, in Chief European Dramatists. 

IpsEN, Henrik, Collected Works, ed. by W. Archer, t911t (12 
vols.). 

Lessinc, G. E., Dramatic Works, Bohn Library, 1878 (2 vols.). 

Litto, GrorcEe, The London Merchant and Fatal Curiosity, ed. by 
A. W. Ward, 1906. 

Lupwic, O., The Hereditary Forester (Der Erbférster), in The 
German Classics, 1914. 

MaETERLINCK, M., Plays, translation by R. Hovey, 1913-19 (7 
vols.). 

MottereE, J. B. P., Guvres complétes, ed. by E. Despois, 1873-1900 

(13 vols.). 

The Dramatic Works, translation by Van Laun, H., 1875 
(6 vols.). Also an excellent translation of several plays by 
C. H. Page, 1908 (2 vols.). 

PIRANDELLO, Luici1, Three Plays, translated by E. Storer and A. 
Livingston, 1923. 

RAcINE, JEAN, Giuvres complétes, ed. by P. Mesnard, 1865-73. 

Phedra, in Chief European Dramatists. 

Representative Continental Dramas, Revolutionary and Transitional, 
ed. by M. J. Moses, 1924. 


654 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


ScHILLER, J. C. F. von, Works, ed. by N. H. Dole, 1902, Vols. IIT 
and IV. 

ScriBe, E., The Ladies’ Battle (Bataille de Dames), French’s act- 
ing edition of plays, Vol. CVIII. 

SEDAINE, M. J., Le philosophe sans le savoir, ed. by T. E. Oliver, 
IQT4. 

STRINDBERG, A., Plays, translated by E. Bjérkman, 1912-16, 4 series. 

Lucky Pehr, translated by V. S. Howard, 1912. 

Vottarre, F. M. A., Works (St. Hubert Guild), 1901-03 (22 vols.). 
Selected plays, including Nanine and The Scotch Woman 
(L’Ecossaise), in Vols, VITI-X. 

Werner, F. L. Z., The Twenty-Fourth of February (Der Vier- 
undzwanzigste Februar), in The Drama, 1903. 


CHAPTER XX 


Cuexnuov, A., Plays, translated by M. Fell, 1916 (2 vols.). 

The Cherry Orchard, in Chief Contemporary Dramatists. 

EvrEInov, N. M., The Theatre of the Soul, translated by M. Pota- 
penko and C. St. John, rors. } 

Gocot, M. V., The Inspector-General, translated by T. Seltzer, 1916. 

Gorky, M., The Lower Depths, in Chief Contemporary Drama- 
tists, 2d series, 1921. 

Gripovepov, A. S., The Misfortune of Being Clever, translated by 
S. W. Pring, 1914. 

Ostrovsky, A., Plays, translated by G. R. Noyes, 1917. 

The Storm, translated by C. Garnett, 1899. 

Torsto1, L. N., Plays, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, 
IQI4. | 

TurRGENIEV, I. S., Plays, translated by M. S. Mandel, 1924. 


II 
A SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS ON DRAMATIC ART 


GENERAL WORKS ON DRAMA AND DRAMATIC TECHNIQUE 
AND THE THEATRE 


ARCHER, WILLIAM, Playmaking, a Manual of Craftsmanship, 1912. 
Baker, G. P., Dramatic Technique, 1919. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 655 


BELLINGER, M. F., A Short History of the Drama, 1927. 

ButtuHavupt, H., Dramaturgie des Schauspiels, 1908 (4 vols.). 

CLARK, BARRETT, European Theories of the Drama. An anthology 
from Aristotle to the present day. 

CREIZENACH, W. M. A., Geschichte des neueren Dramas, 2d ed., 
IQII-23. 

DinceER, H., Dramaturgie als Wissenschaft, 1904-05 (2 vols.). 

Freytac, Gustav, Die Technik des Dramas, 1863, translated as The 
Technique of the Drama, by E. J. MacEwan, 1895. 

Hamitton, Crayton, The Theory of the Theatre, 1910. 

KiEIn, J. L., Geschichte des Dramas, 1865-76 (13 vols.). 

Manrtztius, K., A History of Theatrical Art, translated by Loufise 
von Cossel, 1903-09. 

MatTtTHEwS, BRANDER, Development of Drama, 1903. 

The Principles of Playmaking, 1919. 

Nicotz, A., The Development of the Theatre, 1927. 

An Introduction to Dramatic Theory, 1903. 

Protss, R., Geschichte des neueren Dramas, 1880-83 (3 vols.). 

Royer, ALPHONSE, Histoire universelle du thédtre, 1878, Vols. V 
and VI. 

SCHLEGEL, A. W., Vorlesungen iiber dramatische Kunst und Later- 
atur, 1809-11, translated by J. Black as Lectures on Dramatic 
Art and Literature, Bohn Library. 


CHAPTERS I-V 


ALLEN, J. T., Stage Antiquities of the Greeks and Romans and their 
Influence, 1927. 

Bywater, I., Aristotle on the Art of Poetry (Text, translation, and 
notes), 1909. 

BetuHE, E., Prologomena zur Geschichte des Theaters im Altertum, 
1896. 

CornFrorp, F. M., The Origin of Attic Comedy, 1914. 

Capps, E., Greek Comedy, in Columbia University Lectures on 
Greek Literature, 1912. 

Denis, J., La comédie grecque, 1886. 

Couvat, A., Aristophane et Vancienne comédie attique, 1892. 

Teaecaparr, P., Euripides and the Spirit of His Dramas, translated 
by James Loeb, 1905. 


656 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


FLICKINGER, R. C., The Greek Theatre and its Drama, 2d ed., 1926. 

GoovDELL, T. D., Athenian Tragedy, 1920. 

Haicu, A. E., The Attic Theatre, 3d ed., 1907. 

The Tragic Drama of the Greeks, 1907. 

HarRBERTON, J. S. P., The Lately Discovered Fragments of Menan- 
der, Text and Translation, 1909. 

Jess, R. C., see Introduction to his separate editions of the plays of 
Sophocles. 

Leo, F., Plautinische Forschungen, 1895. 

LEGRAND, P. E., The New Greek Comedy, translated by James Loeb, 
IQI7. 

Lucas, F. C., Tragedy in Relation to Aristotle’s Poetics, 1927. 

MIcHAUT, G., Histoire de la comédie romaine, 1920. 

Mazon, Paut, Essai sur la composition des comédies d’Aristophane, 
IQII. 

Navarre, O., Les origines et la structure sacle de la comédie 
ancienne, in Revue des études anciennes, 1911. 

Norwoop, G., The Art of Terence, 1923. 

Groth Tragedy, 1920. 

Patin, H. J. G., Etudes sur les tragiques grecs, 1841 (4 043. 

RipcEeway, W., The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of non-European 
Races in Special Reference to the Origin of Greek Tragedy, 
IQIO. 

SHEPPARD, J. T., Greek Tragedy, 1920. 

VaucHNn, C. E., Types of Tragic Drama, 1908. 

WiLaAmow11z-MoELLENDORFF, TycHo, Die dramatische Technik des 
Sophokles, 1917. 

WEIL, H., Etudes sur le drame antique, 2d ed., 1908. 

ZIELINSKI, TH., Die Gliederung der altattischen Komodie, 1885. 


CHAPTER VI 


D’Ancona, A., Origini del teatro italiano, 1891 (2 vols.). 

Bapst, G., Essai sur Vhistoire du thédtre, 1893. 

CoHEN, G., Histoire de la mise-en-scéne dans le thédtre religieux 
francais du moyen-dge, 1906. 

CHAMBERS, E., The Medieval Stage, 1903. 

Du Meritt, E., Histoire de la comédie, 1864. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 657 


Gaytey, C. M., Plays of Our Forefathers, 1909. 

LintinHac, E. F., Histoire générale du thédtre en France, 1904, 
Vols. I and II. 

Macnin, C., Les origines du thédtre moderne, 1838. 

PETIT DE JULLEVILLE, L., Les mystéres, 1880 (2 vols.). 

La comédie et les meurs en France au moyen-dge, 1886. 

Reicu, H., Der Mimus, 1903 (2 vols.). 

Roy, E., Etudes sur le théatre francais du XIV¢ et XV siécles, 1901. 

SEPET, M., Les origines catholiques du théatre moderne, 1901. 


CHAPTERS I-V AND VIII 


ALBRIGHT, V. E., The Shakespearian Stage, 1909. 

AscuaM, R., The Scholemaster, ed. by Arber, 1870. 

BakER, G. P., The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist, 
1907. 

Boas, F. S., Shakespeare and his Predecessors in the English Drama, 
1896. 

BrookE, C. F. T., The Tudor Drama, 1911. 

CRrEIZENACH, W. M. A., English Drama in the Age of Shakespeare, 
1916. 

CunLIFFE, J. W., The Influence of Italian on Early Elizabethan 
Drama, in Modern Philology, 1907, Vol. IV. 

The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, 1893. 

FANsLER, H. E., The Evolution of Technic in Elizabethan Tragedy, 
IQI4. 

Gavtey, C. M., An Historical View of the Beginnings of English 
Comedy, in his Representative English Comedies, 1903. 

Grec, W. W., Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, 1906. 

. Herrorp, C. H., Studies in the Literary Relations of England and 
Germany in the Sixteenth Century, 1886. 

Lez, S., The French Renaissance in England, 1910. 

Lounssury, T. R., Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, 1901. 

Lucas, F. L., Seneca and Elizabethan Tragedy, 1922. 

MacxenziE, W. R., The English Moralities, 1914. 

MatTTHEWS, BRANDER, Shakespeare as a Playwright, 1913. 

Potzarp, A. W., English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes, 
5th ed., 1909. 


658 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Reep, A. W., The Beginning of the English Secular and Romantic 
Drama, 1922. 

SCHELLING, F. E., Elizabethan Drama, 1908 (2 vols.). 

SIDNEY, Purtip, An Apology for Poeitrie, ed. by Arber, 1595. 

SKELTON, JOHN, Magnyfycence, ed. by R. L. Ramsay, 1908. 

Symonps, J. A., Shakespeare’s Predecessors in the English Drama, 
1884. 

The Cambridge History of English Literature, ed. by A. W. Ward 
and M. A. Waller, r910, Vols. V and VI. 

Verity, A. W., Marlowe’s Influence on Shakespeare, 1886. 

Younec, K., The Influence of the French Farce upon the Plays of 

Heywood, in Modern Philology, 1904-05, Vol. II. 


CHAPTERS VIII-X 


APOLLInalRE, G., Le thédtre italien, 1910. 

BIANCALE, A., La tragedia italiana del 500, 1901. 

CasTELVETRO, L., Poetica d’Aristotle, 1576. 

Cuar Ton, H. B., Castelvetro’s Theory of Poetry, 1913. 

DaniIELLo, B., La Poetica, 1536. 

GrraLp1, Crntu10, Discorso sulle comedie e sulle tragedie, written 
in 1543, published 1554 (Daelli’s Biblioteca Rara, 1864, 
Vols. LII-LIIT). 

Horace, The Art of Poetry, translated by C, Shab: 

KarsTENn, H. T., Ed., De commenti Donatiani ad Terenti fabulas, 
1912 (2 vols.). 

MinTurRNo, A. S., L’arte poetica, 1564. 

Nert, F., La tragedia italiana del cinquecento, 1904. 

PaDELFORD, F. M., Select Translations from Scaliger’s Poetics, 1905. 

Rogportetu, F., In Librum Aristotelis de Arte Poetica Explica- 
tiones, 1548. 

ScALIGER, J. C., Poetices libri septem, 1561. 

SMITH, WINIFRED, The Commedia dell’Arte, 1912. 

SPERONI, SPERONE, Opere, 1740 (5 vols.). 

SPINGARN, J. E., A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, 
1908. 

Symonps, J. A., The Renaissance in Italy, 1900. 

Trisstno, G. B., Tutte le opere, 1729 (2 vols.). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 659 


CHAPTERS XI-XIV 


ARNAUD, C., Etude sur la vie et les euvres de l’abbé d’Aubignac et 
les théories dramatiques au XVII¢ siécle, 1887. 

BERNBAUM, ERNEST, The Drama of Sensibility, 1915. 

CuassaAnc, M. A. A., Des essais dramatiques imités de Vantiquité 
au XIV? et XV® siécles, 1852. 

M.M.D.C. (pE Cuasstron), Réflexions sur le comique-larmoyante, 
1749. 

CORNEILLE, PIERRE, Giuvres complétes, ed. by Marty-Laveaux. 

Diwerot, DENts, Giuvres complétes, ed. by Assézat, 1875-77. 

FacuEt, E., La tragédie en France au XVI° siécle, 1883. 

FournEL, V., Le thédtre au XVII° siécle, 1892. 

GatiFFE, F., Etude sur le drame en France au XVIII¢ siécle, 1910. 

Hépettn, F. (Abbé d’Aubignac), Pratique du thédtre, 1657. 

Huszar, G., Corneille et le thédtre espagnol, 1903. 

JourpaIn, E. F., Dramatic Theory and Practice in France, 1690- 
1808, 1921. 

LA MESNARDIERE, Art poétique, 1640. 

La Motte, ANTOINE Houpar DE, Premier discours sur la tragédie, 
and his three ‘“Discours sur la tragédie,” prefixed to his 
plays. 

LANCASTER, H. C., The French Tragi-comedy, 1907. 

Lanson, G., Nivelle de la Chausée et la comédie larmoyante, 2d 
ed., 1903. 

LVidée de la tragédie avant Jodelle, in Revue d’histoire 

littéraire de la France, 1904. 

Esquisse d’une histoire de la tragédie frangaise, 1920. 
Corneille, 1898. 
Les origines de la tragédie classique en France, in Revue 

d’histoire littéraire de la France, 1903. 

LarrouMET, G., La comédie de Moliére, 1887. 

La TAILLE, JEAN DE, Art de la tragédie, 1572. 

Lintirwac, E. F., Histoire générale du thédtre en France, 1904-10, 
Vols. IV and V. 

Lion, H. G. M., Les tragédies et les théories dramatiques de Vol- 
taire, 1895. 


660 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Lope DE VEGA, Arte nuevo de hacer comedias, translated by 
W. T. Brewster in Papers on Play-making (Dramatic 
Museum of Columbia University), 1914. 

LounsBury, T. R., Shakespeare and Voltaire, 1902. 

MAIRET, JEAN DE, Preface to his Silvanire, ed. by Otto, 1890. 

Marsan, J., La pastorale dramatique en France, 1905. 

MARTINENCHE, E., Moliére et le thédtre espagnol, 1906. 

La comédie espagnol en France, 1900. 

MATTHEWS, BRANDER, Moliére, 1910. 

Motanp, L., Moliére et la comédie italienne, 1867. 

MotiErE, J. P. B., Guvres complétes, ed. by Despois et Mesnard, 
1873-1900. 

OcteEr, F., Preface to Schélandre’s Tyr et Sidon, 1628, in Ancien 
théatre francois, 1856, Vol. VIII. 

RACINE, JEAN, Cuvres complétes, ed. by Mesnard, 1865-73. 

Rica, E., Moliére, 1908. 

atbvnidie Hardy et le thédtre francais, 18809. 

SEARLES, CoLBERT, Les sentiments de lV’ Academie deta sur la 
tragedie-comédie du Cid, 1916. 

SEGALL, J. B., Corneille and the Spanish Drama, 1902. 

Loree, Re La comédie francaise de la Renaissance, in Revue 
ad’ histoire littéraire de la France, 1897-1900. 

VAUQUELIN DE LA FReESNAYE, L’art poétique, ed. by Pellissier, 
1885. 

VOLTAIRE, Giuvres complétes, ed. by Moland, 1877-85. 


CHAPTER XV 


Betoutn, G., De Gotisched a Lessing, 1909. 

BLANCHET, F. A., Du thédtre de Schiller, 1855. 

BRENNING, Emit, Lessing als Dramatiker und Lessing’s Nathan 
der Weise, 1878. 

ELoEsseEr, A., Das biirgerliche Drama, 1898. 

GotscuiicH, Emit, Lessing’s aristotelische Studien und der Ein- 
fluss derselben auf seine Werke, 1876. 

GoTTSCHED, J. C., Versuch einer kritischen Dichtkunst, 1730. 

GruckerR, E., Histoire des doctrines litteraires et esthétiques en 
Allemagne, 1883. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 661 


Kontz, A., Les drames et la jeunesse de Schiller, 18099. 

KUHNEMANN, E., Schiller, translated by Katherine Royce, 1912 
(2 vols.). 

Lessinc, G. E., Hamburgische Dramaturgie, 1769, translated by 
E. C. Beasley and Helen Zimmern as Hamburg Dramaturgy, 
Bohn Library. 

PETERSON, J., Schiller und die Biihne, 1904. 

PetscH, R., Deutsche Dramaturgie von Lessing bis Hebbel, 1912. 

POENSGEN, Max, Geschichte der Theorie der Tragodie von Gott- 
sched bis Lessing, 1899. 


CHAPTER XVI 


BorcErHorfr, J. L., Le théatre anglais a Paris sous la restauration. 

Ginisty, P., Le mélodrame, 1911. 

GLACHANT, P. et V., Essai sur le théadtre de Victor Hugo. 

Huco, Victor, Préface de Cromwell, 1827. 

LATREILLE, C., La fin du thédtre romantique et Francois Ponsard, 
1899. 

LE Roy, A., L’aube du thédtre romantique, 1904. 

Marsan, J., Le mélodrame et G. de Pixerécourt, in Revue d’histoire 
littéraire de la France, Vol. VII. 

NesoutT, P., Le drame romantique, 1899. 

Manzoni, Lettres sur l’unité de temps et de lieu, traduites par 
Fauriel, 1823. 

Paricot, H., Le drame d’Alexandre Dumas, 1808. 

Pitou, A., Les origines du mélodrame, in Revue d’histoire lit- 
téraire de la France, 1911, Vol. XVIII. 

SAKELLARIDES, E., Alfred de Vigny, auteur dramatique, 1902. 

Sourtau, M., De la convention dans la tragédie classique et dans le 
drame romantique, 1885. 

STENDHAL (Pierre Beyle), Racine et Shakespeare, 1823. 


CHAPTERS XVII-XVIII 


ALLARD, L., La comédie de meeurs en France au dix-neuviéme siécle, 


1923. t 
BENOISsST-HANAPPIER, L., Le drame naturaliste en Allemagne, 1905. 


662 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BrauM, Otto, Kritische Schriften uiber Drama und Theater, 1913. 

BRUNETIERE, F., La loi du thédtre, translated by P. M. Hayden as 
The Law of the Theatre in Papers on Play-making (Dra- . 
matic Museum of Columbia University), 1914. 

CHANDLER, F. W., Aspects of Modern Drama, 1914. 

The Contemporary Drama of France, 1920. 

Criark, Barrett, A Story of the Modern Drama, 1925. 

Dawson, E., Henri Becque, 1923. 

Dovumic, R., De Scribe a Ibsen, 1896. 

Dukes, ASHLEY, Modern Dramatists, 1911. 

GAILLARD, H., Emile Augier et la comédie bes. 1910. 

Got, A., Fen Becque, 1920. . | ‘ 

Hewnesecn A., The Changing Drama, 1919. 

European Dramatists, 1914. 

JaMESON, S., The Modern Drama in Europe, 1920. 

JuLLIEN, JEAN, Le thédtre vivant, 1892-96. 

LEwIsoHN, L., The Modern Drama, 1915. 

LINTILHAC, E., Histoire générale du théatre en France, 1910, Vol. v. 

MorrILLor, Pace Emile Augier, 1901. 

Paricot, H., Emile Augier, 1890. 

Le thédire @hier, 18093. : 

Sarcey, F., Quarante ans de thédtre, 1900-1902 (8 vols.). 

SEcHE, A., et Bertaut, J., L’Evolution du thédire contemporaire, 
1908. 

SHaw, G. B., Dramatic Opinion and Essays, 1906 (2 vols.). 

SmitTH, H. A., Main Currents of Modern French Drama, 1925. 

StoEckius, ALFRED, Naturalism in the Recent German Drama, 
1903. 

Tuatrasso, A., Le Thédtre-libre, 1909. 

Waxman, S. M., Antoine and the Thédtre-libre. 

WitkowskI, G., The German Drama of the Nineteenth Century, 

ZOLA, E., Nos ewe dramatiques, 1881. 

ie naturalisme au thédtre, 1881. 


CHAPTER XIX 


ARCHER, W., see introductions to his translations of Ibsen’s plays, 
‘1907. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 663 


CAMPBELL, T. M., Hebbel, Ibsen and the Analytic Exposition (Con- 
tains translations of Hebbel’s My Views on Drama and his 
Preface to Maria Magdalena), 1922. 

HELLER, O., Henrik Ibsen, 1912. 

LENEVEU, G., Ibsen et Maeterlinck, 1902. 

LitzMANN, B., Jbsens Dramen, 1901. 

Minor, J., Die Schicksalstragodie in ihren Hauptvertretern, 1883. 

Mosss, M. J., Henrik Ibsen, 1908. 

STEIGER, E., Das Werden des neueren Dramas, 1903 (2 vols.). 

WEIGAND, H. J., The Modern Ibsen, 1925. 


CHAPTER XX 


Carter, H., The New Theatre and Cinema of Soviet Russia, 1925. 
Baxsuy, A., The Path of the Modern Russian Stage, 1916. 
Greocor, J., and FuLtop-Miiier, R., Das Russische Theater, 1927. 
Otcrn, M. J., A Guide to Russian Literature, 1920. 

SAvLER, O. M., The Russian Theatre, 1922. 

The Russian Theatre under the Revolution, 1920. 
STANISLAVSKY, C., My Life in Art, 1924. 

Wiener, L., The Contemporary Drama of Russia, 1924. 


CHAPTER XXI 


Carter, HuNtTLEY, The New Spirit in Drama and Art, 1912. 
CHENEY, SHELDON, The New Movement in the Theatre, 1914. 
Stage Decoration, 1927. 

Craic, E. Gorpon, On the Art of the Theatre, 1911. 

Scene, 1923. 

The Theatre-Advancing, 1921. 

Towards a New Theatre, 1913. 

GruBE, M., Geschichte der Meininger. 

LoHMEYER, W., Die Dramaturgie der Massen, 1913. 

Maccowan, K., The Theatre To-Morrow, 1921. 

Maccowan, K., and Jonss, R. E., Continental Stagecraft, 1922. 
MopverweLl, H., The Theatre of Today, 1914. 

NigssENn, C., Das Biihnenbild, 1924 ff. : 

SAYLER, O. M., Max Reinhardt and His Theatre, 1923. 

Wacner, Ricuarp, Prose Works, translated by W. A. Ellis, 1892 ff. 


664 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
CHAPTER XXII 


Baxsny, A., The Theatre Unbound, 1924. 

CarTER, H., The New Spirit in the European Theatre, 1925. 

Dickinson, T. H., The Insurgent Theatre, 1917. 

Duxss, A., The Youngest Drama, 1924. , 

GoLpBERG, I., The Drama of Transition, 1922. 

JourpaIn, E., The Drama in Europe, 1924. 

LewisoHn, L., The Drama and the Stage, 1922. 

Mosss, M. J., Maurice Maeterlinck, 1911. 

Quinn, A. H., A History of the American Drama, 1927. (2 vols.). 

PALMER, JoHN, The Future of the Theatre, 1913. 

Studies in the Contemporary Theatre. 

Roser, H., Maeterlinck’s Symbolism, 1911. 

SHEFFAUER, H. G., The New Vision in the German Arts, 1924. 

STRINDBERG, A., Dramaturgie, translated in German by E. Scher- 
ing, IOQII. 

Symonps, A., The Symbolist Movement in Literature, 1917. — 

TILGHER, A., Studi sul teatro contemporaneo, 1923. 

VERNON, F., The Twentieth Century Theatre, 1924. 

Youne, S., The Flower in Drama, 1923. 


INDEX 


Abbot, The, 498 

Accolti, 283 

Acharnians, The, 103-105, 107, I10- 
Ria, . 510, 122 

Achilleis, 251, 252 

Ackermann, 475 

Acolastus, 195, 196 

Adam, 163 

Adam de la Hale, 178 

Adan ou de la Feuillée, 178 

Adding Machine, The, 627 

Addison, 419, 426, 456 

Adélaide du Guesclin, 421, 497 

Adrastus, 6, 8 

Adrienne Lecouvreur, 519 

féschylus, 5, 8-10, 15-52, 54, 60-68, 
74, 80, 83, 85-86, 89, 92-93, 95-98, 
T02, 109, 119, 204, 244, 535, 630 

Agamemnon, 14, 15, 36, 37, 42, 45, 
51, 54, 62, 63, 86, 92, 243, 244 

Agamemnon (Seneca), 243, 357, 631 

Agathon, 80, 99, 103 

Agésilan de Colchos, 387 

Agobert, I51 

Aida, 161 

Ajax, 54, 60, 93 

Alamanni, 298 

Alarcon, 324 

Alcée, 316 

Alcemena, 140 

Alcestis, 17, 87, 103, 130, 131, 148, 345 

Alcméon, 368 

Alécis, 180, 186 

Alizon, 323, 330 

Allemagne, De I’, 491 

Alope, 132 

Alphée, 316 

Amant Indiscret, L’, 330 

Amar sin Saber a quién, 325 

Amicizia, 284 

Ami des Femmes, L’, 537 

Ami Fritz, L’, 547, 548 


Aminta, 293, 295, 296, 315, 386 

Amour d’un Serviteur envers sa 
Maitresse, 175 

Amphitryo, 132, 142, 143, 196, 283 

Amphitryo, or Geta, 179 

Anaxandrides, 129 

Ancelot, 497 

Andreini, F., 292, 315 

Andreini, Isabella, 292 

Andria, 145, 148, 149, 195, 198, 425 

Andrienne, L’, 425 

Andrieux, 493 

Andromache, 90, 93 

Andromaque, 410 

Anguillara, 260, 275 

Anmerkung ibers Theater, 474 

Annibal, 457 

Annunciation, The, 157 

Annunzio, D’, 592, 649 

Anteus, or the Libyans, 17 

Antigone (Euripides), 31, 54, 55, 58, 
59, 62, 129, 132, 258, 360 

Antigone (Garnier), 360 

Antiphanes, 96, 122-124, 127-129, 136 

Antoine, 550, 560, 562, 592, 616, 621, 
636 

Antony, 521-522, 524-525, 530-531 

Antony and Cleopatra, 238, 471 

Anzengruber, 573 

Apologie for Poetrie, 206 

Appia, 619, 622-625, 634 

Appius and Virginia, 202-203, 205 

Arbitrants, The, 132-133, 135-136, 142 

Archer, 574, 584, 587, 588 

Archilochus, 2 

Arden of Feversham, 430, 432 

Arétaphile, 378 

Aretino, 268, 288-290 

Argénis et Poliarque, 374, 378 

Argenti, 293 

Ariadne, 365 


665 


666 INDEX 


Arion, 2, 3, 7, 9 

Ariosto, 197, 284-285, 288-289, 298, 
305-306, 310, 313 

Aristophanes, 12, 19, 50-51, 78-79, 86, 
93, 97, IOI-133, 139, 145, 147-148, 
178, 335, 337 

Aristotle, 2-5, 8-11, 19-21, 28, 52-53, 
67, 73) 93, 97, 99-IOI, 103, 105, 107- 
109, 116, 118, 130, 132, 139, 159, 
I73, 202, 223, 256, 259-261, 268- 
269, 271, 273, 277-282, 291, 356- 
357, 391, 404-405, 464, 467-470, 474, 
494, 509, 552, 564, 567, 612, 615, 
617, 623, 625 

Arlésienne, L’, 559 

Arnaud, 484 

Arras Passion, The, 162 

Arrenopia, 219 

Ars Poetica, 271, 491 

Art de la Tragédie, L’, 354, 360 

Art of the Theatre, The, 623 

Art Poétique, L’ (Boileau), 425, 455 

Art Poétique, L’ (Laudun), 362 

Ascham, 204, 206 

Assumption of Hannele, The, 563-564 

Astrologer, The, 498 

As You Like It, 149, 224 

Athalie, 417, 419 

Athenzus, 107 

Aubignac, D’, 399-409 

Audinot, 449 

Auge, 132 

Augier, 341, 453, 520-521, 527-528, 
544, 557, 561, 575 

Augustinus, 254 

Aulularia, 283 

Avare, L’, 340-341 


Bacchantes, The, 86, 89, 93-94, 98, 
I3I, 242, 260 

Bacchides, The, 139, 142, 147 

Badius, 343 

Bajazet, 409 

Bale, 200 

Balzac, 513, 535, 540, 542, 549, 555 

Banqueroutier, Le, 515 

Barbier de Séville, Le, 450 

Barbieri, 330 

Baron, 425 


Barriére, 554 

Bataille de Dames, La, 518, 574 

Batteux, 477 

Beasts, The, 109 

Beaubreuil, 362 

Beaumarchais, 323, 329, 436, 452, 485, 
515, 523, 535 


Becque, 552-554, 556-557, 649 
Belasco, 621 


Bellay, Du, 348 

Belleau, 306 

Benavente, 592 

Bérénice, 297, 410 

Bergerat, 560 

Bergerie, 315, 316 

Berlioz, 4096 

Bertrand et Raton, 517, 519 
Bestrafte Brudermord, Der, 454 
Beverlei, 436, 450 

Beyond Human Power, 563 
Beys, 387. 

Béze, 352 

Bibbiena, 284, 298 

Bijoux Indiscrets, Les, 437 
Birds, The, 109, 111, 117, 120, 122 
Bizet, 559 

Bjornson, 563, 616 


Blue Bird, The. See Oiseau Bleu, L’. 


Boas, 211 

Bocage, 430 

Boccaccio, 204, 284 
Bode, 459 

Bodel, 169-170 
Bodenstedt, 615 

Bodmer, 457 

Boiardo, 283 

Boileau, 425, 455, 456, 495 
Bonarelli, 293, 297 

Bonet, 310 

Bookesbeutel, Der, 457 
Boris Godunov, 594 
Borkenstein, 457 
Bouchers, Les, 550 
Bourgeois, 298 

Bouton de Rose, Le, 551 
Bracciolini, 315 
Bradamante, 360, 369 
Braggart Captain, The, 139-140, 147 
Brahm, 573 

Braut von Messina, Die, 478, 484, 565 


——— se eS, 


INDEX 


Bravure del Capitano Spavento, Le, 
2092 

Breitinger, 457 

Bretog, 175 

Britannicus, 441 

Brome Play, The, 158 

Brooke, 204 

Brothers, The, 137, 148 

Brunetiére, 564, 560, 614, 623 

Bruté de Loirelle, 436 

Brutus, 420, 490 

Buchanan, 345-347 

Bugbears, The, 198 

Buonaparte, 307 

Burgraves, Les, 512-513 

Busiris, 108 

Byron, 501 

Bywater, 11 


Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The, 640 

Caigniez, 487, 488 

Calandria, 284-286, 298, 348 

Calderon, 323 

Calisto and Melibea, 193 

Calisto y Melibea, 193 

Camaraderie, La, 519 

Cambises, 202-203, 205, 213 

Cammelli, 255 

Campagnard, Le, 330 

Campaspe, 200 

Campistron, 497 

Canace, 260, 264, 266, 268 

Captives, The, 130, 139, 148, 463 

Capture of Miletus, The, 17 

Carlyle, 630 

Carmencita and the Soldier, 616 

Carretto, 255, 257 

Cartaginoise, La, 381 

Caryatids, The, 17 

Casina, 306 

Cassaria, 284 

Castelvetro, 274, 280-282, 355 

Castle of Perseverance, The, 188, 190- 
IQI, 207 

Castro, 390, 397 

Cato, 410, 456 

Cefalo, 293 

Celestina, The, 193 

Cénie, 459 


667 


Cervantes, 384 

Chaine, Une, 520 

Chambers, 152 

Chapelain, 378-379, 381, 384, 396, 399 

Chassiron, 458 

Chateau du Diable, Le, 486 

Chatterton, 521, 525-528 

Chaucer, 179 

Chefs d’Qiuvre des Thédtres Etrang- 
ers, 493 

Chekhov, 587, 603-612, 648 

Cherry Orchard, The, 608, 609, 612 . 

Chevalier @ la Mode, Le, 424 

Children of Heracles, The, 90, 93 

Cheerilus, 16 

Christine, 498 

Christophe Colomb, 490 

Christus Xylonicus, 344-345 

Chronegk, 616 

Chronicles, 210, 224, 227, 375, 430 

Cibber, 426, 458 

Cid, Le, 78, 325, 328, 336, 374, 375; 
388-398, 402 

Cid d’Andalousie, Le, 405 

Cinna, 397, 402, 409 

Cinthio. See Giraldi Cinthio. 

Cistellaria, 140 

Clairon, Mlle., 441 

Clarissa Harlowe, 459, 462 

Cléomedon, 380 

Cléopatre Captive, 346, 348-351, 366 

Clitandre, 321, 388 

Clitophon, 377 

Clizia, 284 

Clouds, The, 110-112, 116, 117, I19 

Club, Le, 548, 553 

Cocalus, 119, 127-129 

Collé, 450, 451 

Comédie de Chansons, La, 323 

Comédie du Sacrifice, La, 300 

Comédie Humaine, La, 531 

Comedy of Errors, The, 143, 226, 231, 
232 

Comedy of Two Italian Gentlemen, 
The, 198 

Comedia Babionis, 179 

Comte de Comminges, Le, 484 

Comtesse d’Escarbagnas, La, 337 

Concordia Regularis, 153, 159, 160 

Congreve, 430, 458 


668 INDEX 


Conjectures on Original Criticism, 467, 
468 

Constant, 492, 493 

Conte di Carmagnola, 493 

Contens, Les, 308, 312-313 

Conti. See Stoa. 

Conversion of Saint Paul, The, 160 

Corbeaux, Les, 552-557, 649 

Corine, 316 

Coriolan, 366, 368 

Coriolanus, 228 

Corneille, Pierre, 78, 207, 307, 312, 
315, 318-331, 336, 365, 360, 374, 382, 
388-391, 396-416, 464, 468-470, 513, 
544 

Corneille, Thomas, 416 

Cornélie, 206, 357, 358, 361, 384, 390 

Corraro, 252 

Corregio, 293 

Corrivaux, Les, 305, 306, 311, 313 

Country Wife, The, 458 

Craig, 592, 623-626, 634 

Crates, 109, 110, 118 

Cratinus, 109, 110, 118 

Creation of the World and the Fall of 
Lucifer, The, 159 

Crébillon, 417, 422 

Cresphontes, 130 

Criséide et Arimant, 324 

Critique de Ecole des Femmes, La, 
334, 336 

Cromwell, 478, 495 

Cusanus, 283 

Cyclops, The, 131, 260 

Cymbeline, 225, 230 

Cyrano de Bergerac, 329, 330 


Dama Duende, La, 323 

Dame aux Camélias, La, 530, 531 

Danaides, The, 17 

Dancourt, 424 

Dante, 179 

Daudet, 559, 560 

David Combattant, 352 

David Fugitif, 352 

David Triomphant, 352 

Dead Souls, 593 

Death of Tintagiles, The. See Mort 
de Tintagiles, La. 


Debussy, 631, 635 

Decameron, 204, 255 

De Captivitate Ducis Jacobi, 254 

De Clericis et Rustico, 179 

Défense et Illustration de la Langue 
Francaise, 348 

Delavigne, 501, 502 

De Loutherbourg, 620 

Demi-Monde, Le, 531-533, 538 

Démocrite, 427 

Demon of the Woods, The, 608 

Demosthenes, 110 

Denise, 533 

Dépit Amoureux, Le, 330, 331 

Deschamps, 456 

Desguisez, Les, 310, 313 

Desmasures, 352 

Destouches, 425, 426, 458, 464 

Deutsche Hausvater, Der, 476 

Deutsche Schaubtihne, Die, 456 

Diana, 384 

Diane, 322 

Diane de Lys, 530, 531 

Diderot, 51, 435-448, 452, 459, 461, 
463, 464, 470, 476, 477, 523-526, 
534, 549, 555, 572 

Dido, 214 

Didon, 366, 367, 375 

Didone, 205, 266, 268 

Digby Plays, The, 190 

Diomedes, 343 

Dionysus, 2, 6, 7, 8, II, 12, 103, 106, 
108 

Diphilus, 129, 140 

Discourse on Comedy and Tragedy, 
261 

Discours sur la Tragédie, 419 

Dix Ans dans la Vie d’une Femme, 
531 

Dobrolyubov, 598-601 

Dodsley, 450 

Dolce, 204, 205, 261, 266-268 

Doll’s House, A, 78, 572, 574-576, 
579-584, 588, 590, 591, 608, 609 

Dolotechne, 283 

Donatus, 145, 147, 276, 343, 350, 355 

Don Carlos, 478, 481, 482, 408 

Don Garcie, 340 

Don Japhet d’Arménie, 328 

Don Juan, 337 


ee ee ee ee ee a ee ee ee 


ST 


INDEX 


Double Dealer, The, 430, 458 

Doubles, The, 127 

Dovizio, 254 

Dramaturgy, 636 

Dream Play, The, 639, 640 

Drummer, The, 426 

Dryden, 430, 458, 467 

Du Cros, 378 

Duhautcours, 515 

Dumas, the elder, 453, 478, 480, 487, 
495, 496, 497, 512, 521-525, 527, 531 

Dumas, the younger, 146, 176, 340, 
520, 521, 530-541, 544, 551, 552, 
554, 557, 561, 575, 582, 600 

we a 322, 374, 377, 378, 380, 381, 
395 


Ebahis, Les, 303 

Ecerinis, 250 

Echegaray, 616 

Ecole des Femmes, L’, 335-337, 340, 
341 

Ecole des Maris, L’, 334, 341 

Ecole des Meéres, L’, 427 

Ecossaise, L’, 443 

Edouard III, 421 

Edward II, 214 

Electra (Euripides), 81-84, 98, 203, 
343 

Electra (Sophocles), 5, 62-67, 258, 259 

Elegies, 2 

Elements of Criticism, 468 

Emilia Galotti, 461, 464, 465, 470, 
477 

Empereur Qui Tua Son Nepveu, L’, 
175 

Endimion, 199, 200 

En Famille, 560 

Ennius, 242 

Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man, 
599 

Entrée dans le Monde, Le, 514 

Entretiens sur le Fils Naturel, 437 

Envieux, L’, 426 

Epicharmus, 107, 108, 109, 118 

Ephippus, 127 

Epigenes, 8, 9 

Epitia, 352 

Erbforster, Der, 571 


669 


Erckmann-Chatrian, 547, 548 

Eriphyle, 421 

Escholliers, Les, 310, 313 

Esprit Follet, L’, 323 

Esther, 491 

Estienne, 298, 300 

Estrella de Sevilla, La, 495 

Ethelwold, 153 

Elourdi, 1’, 430, 331 

Eirangeére, L’, 533, 539 

Eugéne, 300, 302, 303, 306, 309 

Eugénie, 436 

Eumenides, The, 14, 36, 46, 53, 54, 
84, 102, 403, 631 

Eunuch, The, 145, 149 

Euripides, 45, 50, 51, 54, 74, 75, 77; 
79-100, 102, III, II4, II5, 119, 122, 
126, 127-132, 136, 139, 140, 142, 143, 
148, 203, 204, 241, 243, 245, 256, 
257, 259, 260, 266, 267, 268, 275, 
345, 346, 350, 351, 357, 358, 360, 
380, 427, 428, 430, 462, 524 

Everyman, 188, 200, 202 

Evreinov, 642 

Exemplary Novels, The, 384 


Facheux, Les, 337, 338 

Fair Penitent, The, 432 

Famine ou les Gabéonites, La, 356 

Farce d’un Gentilhomme, 181 

Fatal Curiosity, 566 

Fatal Marriage, The, 432 

Father, The, 636 

Fausse Antipathie, La, 426, 427 

Faust, 498, 539 

Faustus, 218 

Faux Bonshommes, Les, 554 

Favart, 452 

Feast at Solhoug, The, 574 

Feast of the Asses, 176 

Feast of the Fools, 176 

Feast of the Innocents, 176 

Fedele, Il, 198 

Felisméne, 384 

Femme a@ Deux Maris, La, 488 

Femme de Claude, La, 538, 540 

Femme Que Notre Dame 
d’Estre Arse, Une, 171, 176 

Femmes Savantes, Les, 337, 338 


Garda 


670 INDEX 


Fenouillet de Falbaire, 484 

Fernando de Rojas, 193 

Fernandus Servatus, 254 

Ferrex and Porrex. See Gorboduc. 

Féte de Néron, Une, 503 

Feuerbach, 622 

Fiesko, 477, 479, 482, 497, 498 

Fiesque, 497 

Filleul, 352, 353 

Filli di Sciro, 293, 297 

Fillis de Scire, 379 

Filostrato e Panfila, 255 

Fils Naturel, Le (Diderot), 439, 444 

Fils Naturel, Le (Dumas), 525, 533, 
536 

Firenzuola, 298 

Flaubert, 548 

Flickinger, 7 

Flora, 298 

Flower, The, 80 

Force du Sang, La, 384 

Forét d’Hermanstad, La, 488 

Forét Périlleuse, La, 486 

Fourberies de Scapin, Les, 337 

Four Elements, The, 190, 191 

Four P’s, The, 192 

Franc Archier de Baignolet, Le, 180, 
195 

Frégonde, 370 

Freytag, 538, 571 

Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 217, 
218 

Frogs, The, 50, 86, 93, 97, 105, 109, 
LU; T19j) 20, 122,92 99; 12975 Tat 


Gaiffe, 436 

Galanteries du Duc d’Ossone, Les, 313, 
319, 322, 324, 326, 375 

Galerie du Palais, La, 320, 321, 322 

Galsworthy, 78, 341 

Gamester, The, 435, 436, 450, 458, 459, 
463 

Gammer Gurton’s Needle, 197 

Garchons et li Aweules, Li, 180 

Garnier, 204, 206, 353, 356-366, 370 

Garrick, 507 

Gascoigne, 198, 204, 268 

Gautier, 496 


Gautier de Coincy, 172 

Gellert, 458 

Gelosi, 292 

Gelosia, La, 291 

Geoffry of Monmouth, zor 

George Dandin, 180, 333, 340, 342 

Gemmingen, von, 476 

Gendre de M. Poirier, Le, 528 

Gerstenberg, Alice, 641 

Gerstenberg, H. W. von, 468, 470, 471 

Ghosts, 565, 573) 580, 582, 589-592, 
630 

Gigantomachie, La, 368 

Giocasta, 204, 266, 267, 268 

Gioconda, La, 649 

Giraldi Cinthio, 204, 219, 261-266, 
272, 274, 275, 278, 279 

Gismond of Salerne, 204 

GI Ingannati, 198, 298 

Glorieux, Le, 426 

Gnapheus, 195 

Godard, 310 

Goethe, 465, 471, 472, 475, 478, 482, 
i 487, 493, 498, 539, 540, 566, 
567 

Goetz von Berlichingen, 471, 472, 482 

Gogol, 593, 594, 596, 599 

Goldsmith, The, 127 

Gombauld, 374, 379 

Goncourt, 554 

Gondinet, 548, 553 

Gorboduc. See Ferrex and Porrex. 

Gorky, 553, 561, 564, 603, 612, 613, 
614 

Gottsched, 455, 456, 457, 464, 470 

Gracques, Les, 497 

Graffigny, Mme. de, 459 

Graf Waldemar, 571 

Grandison, 459 

Grange-Chancel, La, 416 

Grazzini, 198, 288, 290, 291 

Great God Brown, The, 644, 645, 
647, 648 

Greban’s Passion, 158 

Greene, 218, 219 

Gresset, 421, 430, 459 

Grévin, 298, 303, 304, 306, 348, 351 

Griboyedov, 594, 506 

Grimm, 456 


eae eS se 


INDEX 


Griseldis, 174, 176 

Guarini, 293, 295, 296, 207, 315 
Guersens, 353 

Guizot, 493, 406 

Gute Mann, Der, 458 

Gyges und sein Ring, 572 


Haigh, 27, 28, 4o, or 

Halévy. See Meilhac. 

Hamburgische Dramaturgie, Die, 467, 
491 

Hamlet, 47, 55, 178, 211, 215, 216, 
220, 225, 226, 233, 239, 244, 421, 
430, 496, 626 

Hardy, 312, 316-319, 
383, 384, 416 

Hauptmann, 563, 617, 642-644 

Hebbel, 463, 565, 568-573 

Hecuba, 86, 89, 90, 93, 98, 243, 343; 
344, 346, 358 

Hecyra. See Mother-in-Law, The. 

Hedda Gabler, 583-585 

Heiberg, 649 

Heimat. See Magda. 

Helen, 80, 89, 103, 127, 130, 132, 148, 
427 

Hennique, 560 

Henri III et sa Cour, 498-501, 509 

Henry IV, 641 

Héraclius, 399, 400 

Hercules Furens, 246, 247 

Hercules Gitaus, 242, 250, 387 

Herder, 470, 471 

Hernani, 367, 490, 491, 496, 497, 503- 
509 

Hero, The, 132 

Herodes und Mariamne, 572 

Herodotus, 2, 6, 7 

Heureuse Constance, L’, 387 

Heywood, John, 181, 192, 193, 1095, 
196, 201 

Heywood, Thomas, 431 

Hilarius, 168, 170 

Hippolyte, 357 

Hippolytus (Euripides), 87, 89, 93, 94, 
95, 96 

Hippolytus (Seneca), 265, 357 

Historia Baetica, 254 


329, 363-375, 


671 


Historia Britonum, 201 

Hoffmann, 455 

Hofmeister, Der, 475 

Holberg, 456, 457 

Holinshed. See Chronicles. 

Holy Women at the Tomb, The, 155 

Homer, 5 

Honnéte Criminel, L’, 485 

Horace, 271, 272, 276;:278, 282, 201, 
343, 350, 354, 356, 363, 365, 456, 
491 


Horace (Corneille), 397, 399, 402, 
404, 406, 407 

Horace (Laudun), 362 

Horestes, 202, 203 

Houdar de la Motte, 417-4109 

Hroswitha, 179 

Hugo, 239, 276, 367, 418, 453, 478, 
480, 487, 495; 496, 500-513, 519, 
525, 527, 532, 551, 579 

Ibsen, 276, 435, 463, 565, 568, 573- 
592, 608, 6009, 616, 627, 629, 630, 
631, 637 

Il Lasca. See Grazzini. 


Illusion Comique, L’, 324, 374 

Immermann, 621 

Impuissance, L’, 323 

Inavvertio, L’, 330 

Indigent, L’, 451 

Inés de Castro, 418 

Ingeland, 200 

Inspector-General, The. See Revizor. 

Intelligence Comes to Grief, 594 

Interlude of the Virtues and Godly 
Queen Hester, The, 201, 203 

Intronati, 298 

Intruder, The. See Intruse, L’. 

Intruse, L’, 565, 631, 632, 635 

Ion, 86, 87, 80, 91, 93, 98, 129, 130, 
132, 136, 428, 524 

Iphigenia in Aulis, 93, 96, 98, 343, 344; 
346 

Iphigenia in Tauris, 89, 97, 99, 260 

Iphigenie (Goethe), 484 

Iphigénie (Racine), 414, 442 

Iphigénie (Rotrou), 386 

Isnard, 370 


672 INDEX 


It’s a Family Affair—We'll Settle It 
Ourselves, 598 
Ivanov, 608 


Jacke Jugeler, 195 

Jacques Damour, 560 

James IV, 217, 218, 219 

Jane Shore, 494 

Jebb, 74, 76 

Jephtha, 345, 346, 347 

Jew of Malta, The, 177, 214-216 

Jocasta, 204 

Jodelet, ou le Maitre-Valet, 324, 327, 
335 

Jodelle, 261, 300, 303, 306, 309, 346, 
348-351, 355) 358, 359; 366 

Johan Johan, 192, 193, 196 

John Gabriel Borkman, 583, 587, 590 

Johnson, 220 

Jonson, 193 

Judith, 572 

Juives, Les, 358, 361-363 

Jules César, 348, 351 

Julius Cesar (Muretus), 345, 348 

Julius Cesar (Shakespeare), 228, 230, 
237, 404, 410, 457, 471, 479 

Junge Gelehrte, Der, 457 

Jungfrau von Orleans, Die, 479, 481, 
482 


Kabale und Liebe, 475, 477, 479, 483 

Kame, 468 

Kean, 497, 615, 621 

Keep Out of a Stranger’s Sleigh, 598 

Kemble, 496, 497 

Kenilworth, 495 

Kindermorderin, Die, 474, 475 

King Darius, 201, 203 

King Lear, 224, 228, 229, 233, 235; 
236, 477 

Kinwelmersh, 204 

Klinger, 471-477 

Knights, The, 103, 110, 112, 113, 116, 
£27, 134 

Knowles, 407 

Korch, 604 

Kotzebue, 487, 525, 568, 593 

Kunstwerk der Zukunft, Das, 617 


Kyd, 206, 210-219, 226, 229 
Kynge Johan, 200 . 


Labiche, 552, 553 

La Bruyére, 425 

La Chaussée, 425-430, 442, 445, 448, 
452, 459, 461 

Lady from the Sea, The, 589 

Lady Inger of Ostrat, 276, 574 

Lady with the Shorn Locks, The, 136 

La Fosse, 419 

La Grange-Chancel, 416 

Laharpe, 497 

Laius, 68 

Lamb, 634 

Landeau, 528 

Landois, 436, 437 

Lanson, 345, 399 

La Péruse, 349-351 

La Place, 430 

Larivey, 307, 308 

La Taille, 305, 353, 354, 355, 358, 361, 
369 

Laudirio, 245 

Laudun, 362, 363, 364 

Laure Persecutée, 324, 386, 387 

Lazarus Laughed, 644, 647, 649 

League of Youth, The, 574, 582 

Lebrun, 492, 495 

Legge, 206 

Leichtglaubige, Der, 458 

Leidende Weib, Das, 472 

Lekain, 490, 497 

Lemercier, 485, 490-495 

Lena, La, 285 

Lenz, 470, 474-476 

Le Sage, 424 

Lessing, 434, 457-477, 480, 482, 491 

Letter to a Creative Producer, 643 

Lettre ad M. Chauvet, 493 

Libation-Bearers, The, 5, 11, 36, 42, 
54, 61-66 

Li Jus Adan, 178. See Adan ou de la 
Feuillée | 

Liliom, 627 

Lillo, 430, 431, 434, 436, 458, 462, 566 

Lionnes Pauvres, Les, 544, 557 

Little Eyolf, 587, 589, 590 

Livius Andronicus, 137, 241 

Livy, 254-255 


—— - ~ 


“ee ae ee 


ae ee eet oe 


INDEX 


Loaisel Tréogate, 486 

Loches, 344 

London Merchant, The, 431-436, 448, 
449, 450, 463 

Longinus, 51 

Lope de Vega, 323, 325, 330, 384, 385, 
386, 495 

Loschi, 251 

Love’s Last Shift, 426 

Love’s Metamorphosis, 199, 200 

Lower Depths, The, 553, 561, 564, 612, 
613 

Loyalties, 78, 341 

Lucian, 123 

Lucidi, I, 298 

Lucky Pehr, 637 

Lucréce (Filleul), 352, 353 

Lucréce (Ponsard), 513 

Lucréce Borgia, 509, 511 

Ludwig, 571, 572, 573 

Lugné-Poé, 561, 635 

Lyly, 199, 200, 212, 213, 223, 297 

Lysandre et Caliste, 378 

Lysistrata, 104, 110, III, 117, 119, 122 


Macbeth, 44, 55, 178, 210, 212, 226, 
230, 231, 233, 235, 236, 239, 430, 
485, 626 

Machiavelli, 180, 284, 285, 287, 288, 
201 

Macready, 497 

Mad Heracles, The, 88, 93, 94, 98 

Mad Hercules, The, 356, 357 

Maestricht Passion, 157 

Maeterlinck, 44, 176, 509, 563, 565, 
591, 592, 607, 628-649 

Magda, 563 

Maggi, 279 

Magnes, 109 

Magnificence, 190 

Mahelot, 324 

Mahomet, 422 

Mairet, 313, 314, 318, 320, 324, 374, 
377, 381-384, 389 

Maistre Pierre Pathelin, 180, 184, 192, 
306, 329 

Man and the Masses, 642, 643, 649 

Mandragola, La, 180, 285-287, 312 

Manlius, 419 


673 


Manzoni, 493 

Mardatre, La, $42, 543 

Marc Antoine, 206, 357, 358 

Marescalco, Il, 288, 289 

Mariage d’ Argent, Le, 519 

Mariage de Figaro, Le, 485, 514 

Mariage de Victorine, Le, 449 

Maria Magdalena, 565, 570-573, 641 

Marianna, 266, 268 

Marianne, 366 

Maria Stuart, 478, 481, 492 

Mari de la Débutante, Le, 553 

Marino Faliero, 501, 502 

Marion Delorme, 509, 510 

Marionettes, Le, 515 

Marivaux, 448, 457 

Marlowe, 207, 210, 213-218, 223, 229, 
237, 261 

Marmontel, 451 

Marques del Cigarral, 329 

Marquise de la Gaudine, La, 173 

Marriage of Hebe, The, 108 

Marriage of the Children of the Same 
Father, The, 127 

Mars, Mlle., 569 

Marsan, 316 

Marsus, 283 

Martelli, 258, 2590 

Martinenche, 384 

Mary Magdalene, 190 

Massacre of the Innocents, The, 157, 
160 

Masse-Mensch. 
Masses 

Master Builder, The, 563, 589, 629, 
633, 937, 649 

Maternus, 248 

Measure for Measure, 352 

Méchant, Le, 430 

Medea (Euripides), 84, 85, 93, 94, 95, 
98, I19, 243, 245, 345 

Medea (Seneca), 351, 357, 462 

Médée (Corneille), 389, 403 

Médée (La Péruse), 350, 351 

Médecin malgré Lui, Le, 333 


See Man and the 


' Medieval Stage, The, 152, 154 


Médiocre et Rampant, 514 
Megarian Woman, The, 108, 109 
Meilhac and Halévy, 552, 553 
Meininger, Die, 615, 616 


674 


Mein Wort iiber das Drama, 570 

Mélanide, 428, 429, 436, 459 

Méléagre, 367 

Mélite, 315, 318, 319, 320, 388 

Menechmi, 127, 130, 138, 142, 143, 
195, 222, 283, 284, 280, 344 

Menander, 125, 127, 129, 132, 136, 
137, 142, 148, 300 

Mendez, 561 

Menschenhass und Reue, 525, 568 

Menteur, Le, 324, 325, 326, 327, 330 

Mercadet, 542 

Merchant of Venice, The, 143, 177, 
224, 225, 231, 232, 236, 237, 281, 
465 ; 

Mercier, 438, 450, 451, 452, 475, 476 

Meérope, 422 

Merveilleuses, Les, 548 

Mesmes, 298 

Mesnardiére, La, 399, 402, 404, 405 

Metamorphoses, The, 252 

Metel d’Ouville, 323 

Méténier, 560 

Michel Pauper, 557 

Michel’s Passion, 158, 162 

Mignon, 617 

Miles Gloriosus, 140 

Miller of Mansfield, The, 450 

Minna von Barnhelm, 464, 465 

Minturno, 270, 274 

Miracle, The, 176 

Miracle de Théophile, Le, 170 

Miracle of Saint Nicholas, The, 168, 
169 

Miracles de Notre Dame, Les, 187 

Mirtilla, 297, 315 

Misanthrope, Le, 337, 339, 341 

Misfortunes of Arthur, The, 207 

Misogonus, 196 

Miss Julia, 636, 637 

Miss Sara Sampson, 435, 459-464, 476, 


477 

Mocedades del Cid, Las, 390 

Modern Drama, The, 634 

Moissonneurs, Les, 452 

Molé, Mme., 568 

Moliére, 178, 180, 186, 285, 293, 307, 
312, 329-342, 424, 425, 457) 458, 
464, 465, 480, 517, 521, 527, 530, 
536, 544, 546, 638 


INDEX 


| Nodier, 493 


Molnar, 627 

Monsieur Alphonse, 540 

Montchrétien, 315, 316, 363, 381 

Montemayor, 384 

Month in the Country, A, 543, 597 

Monvel, 486 

Moore, 430, 435, 436, 458, 459 

Mort de César, La, 421, 422 

Mort de Tintagiles, La, 631, 635 

Mother Bombie, 199, 200 

Mother-in-Law, The, 144, 146, 147, 
148, 149 

Much Ado About Nothing, 387 

Mundus et Infans, 191 

Munday, 1098 

Muretus, 345, 348, 351 

Musik und die Inscenierung, Die, 622 

Mussato, 250 , 

Musset, 508, 558 

My Life In Art, 626 

Myrmidons, The, 119 

Mystére de Sainte Genevieve, Le, 177 

Mystery of the Old Testament, The, 
158 


Nanine, 459 

Nardi, 284 

Nash, 219 

Nathan der Weise, 470 

Nativity, The, 157 

Naturalisme au Thédtre, Le, 549 
Nature, 190, 191 

Naudet, 181, 322 

Navarre, 106 

Negromante, Il, 285, 289, 305 
Nemirovitch-Danchenko, 604 
Nerval, 569 

Neuber, Johann, 455 

Neuber, Karoline, 455, 457 

New Art of Writing Plays, The, 384 “— 
Newton, 201 
Nice Wanton, The, 190, 200 | 
Nicolet, 449 


ae ees a a ee ee es eee ne a > 


iar | 


Noland de Fatouville, 515 
Norton, 201 

Nuit Bergamasque, Une, 560 
Nuit Vénitienne, Une, 508 


INDEX 


Octavia, 247, 248, 250, 262, 267, 357 

CEdipe, 419 

CGidipus Rex, 68, 69, 70, 73, 78, 86, 
92, 93, 239, 243, 244, 260, 271, 275, 
403, 414, 419, 484, 552, 580 

Ogier, 376 

Oiseau Bleue, L’, 633, 634, 635, 637 

Old Heidelberg, 550, 621 

O'Neill, 644-649 

Orazia, 268 

Orbecche, 261, 264, 266, 268 

Oreste, 406, 423 

Orestes, 52, 54, 91, 129, 172, 203, 241 

Orfeo, 252, 293 

Orphan, The, 432 

Ostrovski, 597-607 

Othello, 205, 210, 216, 224, 227, 234, 
236, 387, 479, 494, 496, 502 

Otto, 472 

Otway, 419, 432 

Overtones, 641 

Ovid, 252 


Pacuvius, 241 

Painter, The, 127 

Palsgrave, 195 

Pamphilus, 194 

Panthée, 353 

Parabosco, 305 

Parasite, Le, 330 

Pardoner and the Friar, The, 192 

Parentadi, I, 291 

Partie de Chasse de Henri IV, La, 
451 

Pascal, 516 

Pasqualigo, 198 

Pastor Fido, Il, 293, 295, 296, 315 
318 

Paternoster Play, The, 187 

Patties de Mouches, Les, 577 

Patu, 430, 451 

Paulus, 283 

Pauvre Fille Villageoise, Une, 175 

Pazzi, 260 

Peace, Tit, 112, 117, 120, 122 

Peasant, The, 108 

Pedant Joué, Le, 329 

Peer Gynt, 589 


675 


Pelléas and Mélisande, 563, 635 

Pellerin, 641 

Pentheus, 10 

Pentimento Amoroso, Il, 315 

Pére de Famiile, Le, 444, 445, 476 

Pére Prodigue, Un, 535 

Pernet, 192, 193 

Perrin, 310 

Perro del Hortelano, El, 330 

Persians, The, 5, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17; 18, 
TQ, 21, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 33, 35, 
36, 50, 58, 59 

Persian Woman, The, 125 

Petit de Julleville, 369 

Petite Ville, La, 514 

Petits Auvergnats, Les, 486 

Petrarch, 283 

Phédre, 239, 410, 414, 415, 626 

Pherecrates, 110, 118 

Philanire, 352, 354 

Philemon, 129 

Philoctetes, 78, 172, 443, 629 

Philogenia, 283 

Philologia, 283 

Philosophe Marié, Le, 426 

Philosophe sans le Savoir, Le, 421, 
445-449, 461, 526, 630 

Phenician Women, The, 5, 17, 18, 80, 
95, 98, 204, 267, 360 

Phenisse or Thebais, 201 

Phorbas or the Prizes of Pelias, to 

Phormio, 148 

Phormis, 107, 118 

Phrynichus, 5, 10, 16-21, 25, 28 

Picard, 514-517 

Pichou, 387 

Pickering, 203 

Pillars of Society, 575, 582 

Pinero, 563 

Pinto, 485, 490 

Pirandello, 641 

Pisistratus, 8 

Pitoéff, 562 

Pixerécourt, 486-488, 501, 508, 510, 
512 

Place Royale, La, 320, 321 

Plato, 20, 96, 103, 277 

Platonius, 127 

Plautus, 108, 125, 130-148, 1709, 104, 
195, 106, 222, 253) 206; 25a;"38G. 


676 INDEX 


Plautus—Cont’d 
289, 290, 291, 298, 305, 306, 312, 
463 

Play of the Weather, The, 192 

Plutarch, 136, 238 

Plutus, 118, 119, 121-128, 337, 348 

Poetics (Aristotle), 260, 261, 469, 552. 
See also Aristotle. 

Poetics (Scaliger), 269. See alse Sca- 
liger. 

Poetry, 128 

Poisson, 329 

Poliziano, 252, 293 

Polyeucte, 382, 397, 402, 403 

Pompée, 403 

Ponsard, 513 

Pope, 467 

Porcie, 357, 361 

Poulailler, Le, 182, 304 

Power of Darkness, The, 560-562, 630 

Pratinas, 16 

Pratique de Théétre, La, 400. See 
also Aubignac, D’. 

Précieuses Ridicules, Les, 333, 337 

Préface de Cromwell, Le, 418, 496 

Préjugé a la Mode, Le, 443 

Preston, 213 

Pride of Life, The, 188, 189 

Priests, The, 10 

Princesse Georges, La, 536 

Princesse Maleine, La, 633 

Progne, 252 

Project for the Production of the 
Tragedy Tsar Fedor Ivanovich, 604 

Prometheus Bound, 5, 17, 27, 33, 355 
36, 41, 53, 54, 59 

Protégée of the Mistress, A, 599, 
603 

Prudentius, 187 

Pseudolus, 140, 148 

Psychomachia, 187 

Pushkin, 593, 594 

Pygmalion, 449 

Pyrame et Thisbé, 374 


Quentin Durward, 495, 498 

Querolus or Aulularia, 178, 179 
Question d’Argent, La, 537, 538, 552 
Quinault, 330 


Rachel, Mlle., 512 

Racine, 297, 332, 360, 365, 399, 409- 
419, 441, 442, 448, 480, 513, 526, 
534, 593 

Racine et Shakespeare, 493 

Ralph Roister-Doister, 196, 197 

Ramsey, 188 

Rastell, 193, 195 

Rauber, Die, 477, 478, 484; 487 

Ravisius Textor, 195 

Ravissement de Proserpine, Le, 368 

Ray of Light in the Realm of Dark- 
ness, A, 508 

Realm of Darkness, The, 598 

Reconnue, La, 306 

Regnard, 427, 467, 527 

Régulus, 362 

Reinhardt, 592 

Rémusat, 493 

Resurrection, The, 155, 157 

Reue nach der That, Die, 475 

Revizor, 594, 595 

Rhadamiste et Zénobie, 416 

Rice, 627 

Richard III, 494 

Richard III et Jeanne Shore, 493 

Richardson, 459, 462 . 

Richardus Tertius, 206 

Richelieu, 373 

Ricochets, Les, 515 

Rigal, 369 

Right You Are, If You Think You 
Are, 641 

Rigoletto, 617 

Robin et Marion, 178 

Robortello, 279 

Rodogune, 399, 406, 407, 417 

Roi et le Fermier, Le, 451 

Roi s’Amuse, Le, 508, 510 

Romance of the Rose, The, 187 

Romeo and Juliet, 149, 205, 210, 227, 
232, 236, 308, 496, 507 

Ronsard, 348 

Rosmersholm, 584, 590 

Rosmunda, 258 

Rotrou, 312, 322-324, 386-389 

Rouillet, 352 

Rousseau, 449 

Rowe, 432 

Royer, 538 


* 
SS —_s ee 


SS 


a — a |, 


a so 


INDEX 


Rucellai, 258 

Rudens, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 
147 

Ruy Blas, 509, 512 


Sackville, 201 

Sacrifice d’Abraham, Le, 352 

Salome, 563 

St. Catherine, 168 

St. Gall, 151 

Saint Gelais, 350 

Ste. Geneviéve Passion, 162, 177 

Sainte Marthe, 349, 357 

Saint John The Baptist, 345 

Sallust, 254 

Sand, Mme., 449 

Sannyrion, 118 

Sarcey, 534, 542, 548, 552, 554, 559, 
560, 631, 635 

Sardou, 323, 544, 546, 552, 553, 554; 
557, 561, 577 

Satyrus, 129 

Saiil, le Furieux, 356, 361 

Saurin, 436, 450, 476 

Scaliger, 268, 269, 274, 276, 277, 279, 
353, 355, 356, 404 

Scarron, 324, 327-330, 335, 337 

Scédase, 367 

Schélandre, 376 

Schiller, 472, 475, 476, 477, 478-484, 
486, 487, 492, 495, 497, 498, 501, 
508, 565, 572, 616, 617 

Schlegel, A. W., 491, 493, 507, 621 

Schlegel, J. E., 456, 457 

Scholemaster, The, 204 

Schroeder, 475 

Scott, 487, 495, 498, 500, 501, 593 

Scribe, 96, 323, 483, 485, 514, 516- 
521, 527-532, 534, 535, 537, 552; 
554, 556, 558, 574, 575, 577, 592 

Scudéry, 375, 389 

Sea Gull, The, 608-612 

Second Mrs. Tangueray, The, 563 

Second Shepherds’ Play, The, 11, 158, 
176, 177, 187, 192 

Sedaine, 435, 445, 448-452, 461, 465, 
526...535 

Segni, 270 

Self-Tormentor, The, 148 


677 


Sémiramis, 422, 439 

Seneca, 47, 60, 79, 83, 84, 92, 96, III, 
20I, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 210, 
212, 214, 241-249, 250, 252, 253, 
255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 261, 262, 
203, 265, 266, 267, 268, 272, 343, 
345, 348, 350, 351, 356, 357, 358, 
389, 421, 462 

Serlio, 348, 355, 356, 365 

Seven Against Thebes, The, 11, 13, 14, 
15, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 36, 49, 53, 
58, 62, 68, 98 

Seven Keys to Baldpate, The, 328 

Sfortunato, Lo, 293 

Shakespeare, 32, 40, 47, 55, 68, 
143, 158, 177; 178, 193, 200, 
209, 210, 212, 216, 219-240, 
252, 276, 207, 303, 335, 351, 
367, 370, 391, 395, 404, 421, 
454, 455, 457, 458, 464, 465, 
468, 469, 470, 471, 472, 473, 
477, 479, 480, 481, 484, 401, 
493, 496, 497, 501, 502, 507, 
SII, 538, 546, 558, 503, 506, 
616, 620, 621, 645 

Shaw, 111, 146, 435, 551, 563, 502 

Shepherds Play, The. See Second 
Shepherds’ Play. 

Sidnei, 430, 459 

Sidney, 206, 209 

Siegfried, 622 

Silvanire, 318, 320, 375 

Sister Beatrice, 176 

Sisters, The, 127 

Six Characters in Search of an Au- 
thor, 641 

Skelton, 190 

Smithson, Miss, 496, 407 

Socrates, 103, 127 

Sofonisba, 255, 256 

Soldaten, Die, 474 

Solon, 2 

Solorzano, 328 

Sophocles, 5, 9, 20, 51, 52-78, 79, 80, 
82, 83, 85, 890, 93, 94, 96, 97, ITO, 
129, 132, 144, 204, 242, 243, 244, 
246, 256, 258, 271, 274, 276, 360, 
418, 443, 484 

Sophonisba (Thompson), 458 


123, 
208, 
244, 
352, 
430, 
467, 
476, 
492, 
508, 
615, 


678 


Sophonisbe (Mairet), 375, 381, 384, 
389 

Sophonisbe (Saint Gelais), 350 

Soumet, 503 

Southern, 432 

Spanish Tragedy, The, 206, 207, 210, 
227, °2148,°236 

Sperone Speroni, 260, 264, 266, 346 

Spingarn, 279 

Spook Sonata, The, 641 

Staél, Mme. de, 491, 403, 507 

Stanislavsky, 561, 592, 604, 605, 621, 
626 

Stendhal, 493, 495 

Stephanium, 283 

Sterbende Cato, Der, 456, 457 

Stichus, 137, 138 

Stoa, 344 

Stobzus, 148 

Storm, The, 598, 601, 603, 605 

Strange Interlude, 648, 649 

Strattis, 118, 119 

Strega, La, 290, 291 

Strindberg, 474, 491, 607, 635-641 

Sturm und Drang, 473 

Sudermann, 563 

Suidas, 7, 10, 17, 129 

Suite de Menteur, La, 325 

Suivante, La, 320, 321 

Suppliants, The, §, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 
24-27, 28, 33, 35, 50, 58, 92, 93, 95, 
97, 98 

Supposes, The, 198, 222 

Suppositi, I, 197, 298, 306, 310, 313 

Susarion, 106, 107 

Syleus, 131 

Sylvie (Landois), 436, 437 

Sylvie (Mairet), 318, 320 

Symposium, The, 103 


Tabarin, 332 

Talanta, La, 289, 290 

Talma, 490, 494, 495, 497, 569 

Tambour Nocturne, Le, 426 

Tamburlaine, 207, 214 

Tancréde, 441 

Tantalus, 17 

Tartufe, Le, 285, 337, 338, 339, 341, | 
465, 530 


INDEX 


Tasse, La, 310 

Tasso, 293, 295, 315, 386 

Telephus, 111, 114, 119 

Tempest, The, 228 

Teobaldo, 253 

Terence, 140-150, 179, 194, 195, 253; 
283, 284, 286, 290, 305, 312, 343, 
345, 425, 427, 428 

Terens in English, 195 

Tétes de Rechanges, 641 

Theatralische Bibliothek, Die, 458 

Thédtre, Du, 475 

Thédtre Anglais, Le, 430 

Theatre of the Soul, The, 642 

Themistius, 9 

Theoandrothanatos, 344 

Theocrisis, 344 

Theopompus, 118 

Thérése Raquin, 543, 545, 552 

Thersites, 195 

Thespis, 8, 9, 10, 16, I9 

Thieste, 266 

Thompson, 457 

Three Kings, The, 157, 160, 162 

Three Marys, The, 155 

Three Sisters, The, 609, 612 


Thyestes, 210, 243, 246, 263, 357 


Tieck, 621 

Timme, 482 

Timoclée, 367 

Timon, 123, 124, 125 

Timone, 283 

Timon the Misanthrope, 123 

Titus Andronicus, 224, 235, 252, 546 

To Damascus, 607, 637, 639, 640, 641 

Toller, 642, 643, 649 

Tolstoi, A. K., 604 

Tolstoi, L. N., 560, 562, 604 

Tour de Nesle, Le, 512 

Tournébe, 308, 309 

Towneley Cycle, The, 177, 192 

Tragedy of Love, The, 649 

Tragical in Daily Life, The, 629 

Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Ju- 
liet, The, 204 

Traviata, 617 

Trésoriére, La, 303 

Treveth, 250 

Trinummus, 148 

Triomphe d’Amour, Le, 317, 320 


INDEX 


Trissino, 256, 257, 258 

Tristan l’Hermite, 330 

Tristan und Isolde, 623 

Troade, La, 356, 358, 360 

Troas, 201 

Trognon, 493 

Troilus, 17, 110 

Trojan Women, The (Euripides), 90, 
92, 358 

Trojan Women, The (Seneca), 356, 
357, 358 

Troterel, 311 

Tullia, 258, 260 

Turcaret, 424, 515 

Turgeniev, 543, 597, 598, 604, 607 

Twelfth Night, 223 

Two Gentlemen of Verona, 224, 225 

Tyr et Sidon, 376 

Tzetzes, 109 


Udall, 196 

Ugolini, 283 

Ugolino, 471 

Uncle Vanya, 607, 612 


Valentine, Die, 571 

Vanbrugh, 458 

Vedova, La, 307 

Vendanges de Suresnes, Les, 322 

Venice Preserved, 419 

Verardi, 254 

Verdad Sospechosa, La, 324 

Vergerio, 283 

Verronneau, 323 

Versuch einer Kritischen Dichtkunst, 
456 | 

Veuve, La, 307, 318, 320, 321 

Victimes Cloitrées, Les, 486 

Victor ou VEnfant de la Forét, 487 

Vierundzwanzigste Februar, Der, 565 

Vigny, 502, 503, 521, 525-529, 533 

Villemain, 403 

Viluppo, 305 

Viperanis, 362 

Virgil, 179, 261 

Virginia, 283 

Virginius, 497 


679 


Visé, 424 

Vistonnaires, Les, 323, 329, 374 

Vitalis Blesensis, 179 

Vitruvius, 343, 355 

Voltaire, 51, 297, 406, 419-423, 4309, 
441, 443, 450-459, 468, 484, 492, 


497, 593 
Vossius, 403 


Wagner, Heinrich, 474, 475 

Wagner, Richard, 509, 617, 618, 622, 
633 

Wallenstein, 479, 481, 492 

Walpole, 507 

Warning for Fair Women, A, 421 

WY OSES They TAI2 212) 103,119,622 

Weavers, The, 563, 564, 617, 644 

Weisse, 457 

Werfel, 592 

Werner, 565, 566 

When We Dead Awaken, 574, 584, 
587, 589, 590, 591 

Widowers’ Houses, 563 

Wieland, 468 

Wild Duck, The, 589, 590, Sor 

Wilde, 346, 551, 563 

Wilhelm Tell, 478 

William de Volder. See Gnaphzus. 

Winter's Tale, The, 222, 231, 232 

Wisdom and Mankind, 190 

Woman in Council, The, 111 

Woman in the Moone, The, 199, 200 

Woman Killed with Kindness, A, 431 

Women Celebrating the Thesmopho- 
ria, The, 117 

Women of Pleuron, The, 17 

Women of Trachis, The, 54, 60, 242 

Wycherly, 458 


Yorkshire Tragedy, A, 431 
Young, 467, 468 


i Youths, 10 


Zamberti, 283 
Zola, 474, 539, 540, 542, 543, 544, 


546, 548, 551, 552, 554, 560, 504 
Zwillinge, Die, 472 
(7) 


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